What dreams may come
by T.M.K.06
Summary: This story takes place after “97 seconds” and can have spoilers for all 4 seasons up to that episode. Short, but not a oneshot. Does an encounter with Death change House? More inside.
1. Introit

**What dreams may come**

_This story takes place after "97 seconds" and can have spoilers for all__ 4 seasons up to that episode. Short, but not a one-shot._

_What was House thinking when he tried to "nearly kill" himself? Or was he thinking anything at all? Does an encounter with __death give him food for thought? Some – at least seemingly – supernatural elements. _

**Introit**

House was not sure what had woken him up nor how he had ended up standing face to face with an intruder in his living room. As intruders went, she didn't look dangerous: a slim girl dressed in white. Her long hair was so blond it looked white and her eyes were deepest midnight blue you could imagine. House had the impression that she was incredibly beautiful, yet, though he was staring at her right there and then, he knew he wouldn't have been able to describe her in any detail or say what about her created the impression of beauty. She looked strangely familiar but House was sure he had never seen her before. House checked the door; it was still closed and had no signs of breaking and entering. Sure he stashed a key outside, but since he had – this once – slid the deadbolt in place, as he didn't want any visitors, the key alone was not going to open the door.

"What are you doing here," House demanded. "How did you get in? And who the hell are you!"

"I came to see you," she replied a little absently ignoring two out of three of his questions.

"How did you get in?" House decided to ask the questions one at a time since the girl obviously wasn't quite _all-there_. Maybe she was a savant at breaking and entering. Of course he hadn't checked all his windows yet so, since he lived on the first floor, she could have got in that way. She looked fit enough.

"I wished to be here, and so I was here," she smiled at House gently, yet there was a little twinkle of mischief in her eyes like she knew that her answers were going to frustrate House.

"Just like that?" House scorned. "Right! Why should I believe you? Who are you that you can just _walk through the walls _or whatever. In fact, just tell me: who are you?"

"I'm the one who cannot be denied," she replied and somehow her voice seemed deeper and for a fraction of a second House felt strange, almost primal, fear. But it passed almost without a trace.

"Ok, what is this?" House insisted. "An elaborate joke? Has Wilson hired you to make me think I've gone bonkers and need a shrink or have I stumbled into an episode of Touched by and Angel? Are you bringing me a message from God telling me that He _loves_ me? Are you supposed to be my guardian angel or something?"

"Yeah, right!" she scorned. "Dreaming about guardian angels would be **so** you."

"Dreaming?" House frowned.

"Duh!" she nodded towards House's bedroom where, once he turned around, he saw himself sleeping in the bed.

"This is a dream?" House was puzzled.

"Yeah, couldn't you tell?" she asked. "After all, your hand is fine."

House looked at his hand and saw that it was fine, no sign of the burn. "How does this tell me this is a dream?" he wanted to know.

"Come on! You're a doctor and though you do scorn psychiatry you do know something about it," she invited. "You know that minor injuries rarely make it into your dreams, unless you are actually dreaming about receiving them, and even then they are rarely accurate. I don't need to tell you how long it took for you to start limping in your dreams."

"Yeah," House acknowledged the hit. "But if this is my dream, why don't I know you?"

"You know me," she told him quietly. "You may not recognise me, but you know me. For the time being you can call me Doña Sebastiana."

"Santa Muerte?" House gasped. He couldn't help but stare at her and suddenly he realised that her hair really was white, not blond, but really white from great age, and though her shape was that of a girl or a young woman, everything about her was actually ageless, eternal. "You're Death."

"I told you I'm the one who cannot be denied," Death smiled at him gently.

"Why would I be dreaming of you?" House wanted to know. "I don't think I have ever personified you in my mind."

"Well, this is your dream, but there are dreams and then there are dreams," Death shrugged a little apologetically. "I needed to talk to you and this seemed like the way to do it. I didn't really want to freak you out, you see."

"Why did you need to talk to me?" House asked suspiciously. "Aren't you supposed to know all the answers already? Or are you going to tell me the meaning of Life or try to convince me that there is God and after-life?"

"I'm Death," she reminded him. "Though life and death are irrevocably linked together I don't really deal with life. And I don't know anything about After-Life. I'm the End of Life, you see. And that, believe me, is quite enough to deal with for one entity!"

"Then why are you here?" House was still in the dark about that.

"I need to know if life has meaning to you," Death sighed.

"What life?" House asked cautiously.

"Your life," Death responded. "Does it have meaning to you?"

"I suppose you'd have to define what you mean with meaning," House prevaricated.

"Stop that!" Death nearly yelled at him. "I'm asking you if you want to live or die, and you can't even say that!"

"What do you want me to say?" House wondered. "Are you telling me that if I don't choose right now you will kill me? Do you want me to have sudden epiphany and break down? Cry and tell you that life is sweet?"

"I want you to tell me that your life is important to you," Death insisted. "Because I don't know. And because that's what's on the table right now: your life."

--------------------

House was not sure how much time had passed, or if any time had passed at all (after all time was a very relative term in dreams) but it felt like there had been a lengthy pause after Death had stated her business – if that was what you could call it. They were now sitting on his couch; he at one end with his leg propped on the coffee table, she at the other end with her feet on the seat, her arms around her legs and her chin leaning on her knees. Her ageless, timeless, eternal midnight eyes were looking into his soul – if he had one.

"I don't know," Death seemed to have read his thoughts.

"What don't you know?" House didn't want to accept her mind-reading abilities even if in dreams stranger things could happen.

"If you have a soul," Death clarified. "Souls and things like that are about the after-life and I don't know anything about that."

"So you don't collect souls?" House asked.

"No. I'm Death, I end lives," Death pointed out. "Souls are none of my business."

"And is that why you are here tonight?" House was curious. "To end my life?"

"No, not tonight," Death promised. "But you cannot play cat and mouse with me forever, not when I'm the Cat."

"What do you mean?" House pretended not to know – though it wasn't entirely a pretence even if he was fairly sure she was talking about his latest stunt with the knife.

"I mean you electrocuting yourself," Death admonished him. "I mean you popping your pills without any regard for your liver and mixing them with alcohol. I mean you speeding on your bike, courting every disaster you can think of! I'm hanging so much around you that I'm really starting to feel like I'm your bloody guardian angel and I resent that! Think about that! You are actually succeeding in pissing off Death herself, and let me tell you that takes some doing."

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," House tried to defend himself. It sounded lame even to him.

"I know," Death surprised him with her reply. "You took precautions to prevent that outcome. But you are a doctor; you knew that no matter how careful you were there was still a real chance of you dying. And you didn't do it for anything one could term as a _higher_ purpose. You were just satisfying your curiosity. And since you're not a cat you don't have nine lives. Actually, even if you had you'd still be on your last one by now. Though you didn't know it, you came much closer to actually dying that you ever have before. I was this close to taking you!" Death lifted her hand and showed House how close he had come. Her thumb and index finger were less than half a millimetre apart from each other.

"If it was that close a call, why didn't you take me?" House was deeply curious.

"Because you didn't have the right to die on her," Death stated.

"Her?" House was puzzled for a second. "You mean Cut-throat Bitch?"

"Yes, I mean Amber," Death nodded. "And there are other people who would have been adversely affected by your death as well. Not that that is a major concern with me in general. Usually when your time's up, it's up. But it didn't feel right yet, taking you."

"Well I suppose I should thank you," House mused, not very convincingly.

"Yeah, I can see you're real grateful," Death dismissed. "But that exactly is the problem."

"My lack of gratitude?" House wondered.

"I don't expect you to thank me," Death clarified. "But I just told you that you nearly died, for real, not just the _nearly _you were aiming for and you feel nothing. No relief, not apprehension, no sudden realisation how close you came to loosing everything. I'm not saying you have a death wish, but you have no life wish either. And before the next time comes I need to know if your life means anything to you. Right now it doesn't seem to."

"I only just told a patient that any kind of life is better than death," House reminded her – he was fairly sure she had been around for that conversation, considering how close to death the patient had been.

"You were angry at him for refusing treatment and thus depriving you of the chance to prove your diagnosis," Death dismissed his words. "You have helped patients to end their lives when the quality of their lives would have been unacceptable. You gave a nine-year-old the chance to choose death a year sooner, if that was what she wanted. You have never believed that _any_ kind of life is preferable to death."

"He wasn't at that point yet," House defended his words. "His life still had a chance to have some quality to it, too. He was choosing death in the hope of reaching a _better_ existence of which he had no proof what so ever!"

"And you have no _proof_ that he was wrong," Death pointed out. "By all means, choose whatever belief you want, but don't tell others what they should choose."

"But they are not rational!" House held.

"That is their choice," Death shrugged. "Besides, I'm not interested in their choices right now. I want to know what your choices are. Why don't you care if you live or die? The two previous times before this one, you wanted to live. You fought hard to live, to survive. You had such vibrant life in you. Now ... This time I couldn't find any _life_ in you. The only reason, the true reason why I didn't take you was because I couldn't really find any death in you either. But not wishing to die will not save you again. Unless you can convince me that you want to live, really want it, not just _don't really mind living_, I'm taking you the next time."

"Well, I suppose I'll take that as a warning," House tried to sound flippant but it didn't quite come off that way.

"Do," Death told him. "So start thinking if your life has meaning for you. Your alarm is about to go off so I'll leave you for now. But I'll be back."

"I suppose I can take that as a promise," House accepted with a sigh just as he suddenly found himself back in bed and the sound of his alarm started to make its way into his ears.

---------------------

House woke up with a start. It was morning and he was definitely alone in his bed, in his apartment and his hand was hurting – as was his leg, of course, but right now he found the hand more interesting. Yes, he was awake and the weird dream was over.

House popped a Vicodin and thought that it might actually be a good idea to go to work and find something else to think about than life, death and finding a parking place anywhere in the Galaxy.


	2. Sick leave

House limped into the hospital a little earlier than usual but even so Cuddy was waiting for him. Or maybe she just happened to be in the lobby but to House it seemed like she had been waiting for him.

"I haven't seen your psych evaluation yet," Cuddy told him as soon as he got close enough. "You are not cleared to work until I do, so unless you are on your way to the third floor you can turn right back and go home."

"Mom!" House whined. "You know I wasn't trying to kill myself. I don't need a psych evaluation!"

"I say you do," Cuddy insisted. "I don't care that you didn't try to kill yourself, you still endangered your life on a senseless experiment. An experiment that endangered the life or your patient as well! I'm still trying to decide if your _unavailability_ caused his death or not, but even if it didn't your behaviour was still insane. You are on sick leave until Dr Stone gives you the all clear."

"Stone!" House exclaimed disgusted. "I wasn't raped! Unless you consider it rape having everybody put their collective noses into my business."

"Dr Stone does not specialise only on rape victims," Cuddy informed him firmly. "And, her specialities apart, she was the only one who agreed to treat a suicidal moron!"

"Fine," House snapped. "I'll think about it. Now can I go?"

"If you are on your way to your office, no, you can't," Cuddy said. "What part of _sick leave_ didn't you get? Go home or go see Stone."

"I need to see my team and besides, wouldn't you rather I sit quietly in my office in a hospital than alone at home where nobody can save me if I get it into my head to try another _insane_ experiment." House snarked.

"Fine, go, stay in your office," Cuddy gave in. "But you are still on sick leave. **Unpaid** sick leave until you have seen Stone."

"Cuddy!" House complained.

"Non-negotiable," Cuddy stated. "You are already causing nightmares to our lawyers; this time you may get away with it, but the next patient who sues you will have way too much ammunition against you unless you have had some treatment after your _incident_."

"Treatment?" House stared at Cuddy. "What is this? First you say I'm on sick leave, then it's unpaid sick leave. Then you say I have to _see_ Dr Stone and now it's _treatment_ I need. What next?"

"I don't really expect you to agree to being treated," Cuddy sighed. "But I need paperwork that says you have had some counselling. Mind you, Stone will be the one who decides when – and if – you can come back to work, so if she insists on treatment, then treatment you will have."

"You are evil!" House accused.

"I believe I told you once before that that is how I compensate for being weak and soft," Cuddy told him as she turned to go back into her office.

---------------------------

House made his way into the room where his ten candidates were waiting for him. The room was silent and the mood was morose. As House walked in all eyes fastened on him with varying questions in them, House ignored every one.

"Dr Cuddy, I'm sure you all remember her?" House raised his eyebrows at the group and received a few affirmative murmurs. "Good. Anyway, she tells me that I'm not allowed to be a doctor again until I have been declared sane by a shrink. Since that is not going to happen any time soon, and as that gives me an excellent reason for not doing my clinic hours you are to divide yourselves into two groups. Four of you will report to the clinic and five of you will go to the ER and report to Dr Cameron. Scooter, you're with me."

"Why isn't Henry coming to the clinic or the ER with us," Amber asked immediately.

"Cause now that I have plenty of time on my hands I'm going to download all the internet porn that has been cumulating in my absence and I think Scooter is old enough to handle the pictures of naked females without getting all huffy about it," House informed her.

"I might get a heart attack with all the excitement though," Henry observed dryly.

"Have no fear," House reassured him. "I'm with you."

"The insane doctor?" Henry remarked. "I feel so much better already."

"I wouldn't get huffy either," Amber insisted.

"Well, if you prefer sitting in suicide watch over doing clinic duty or ER, then fine. You stay and Scooter will go," House invited.

"Suicide watch?" Amber was suddenly almost choking.

"Duh!" House scorned. "I'm the insane doctor! Did you think I would be allowed to be on my own right after I tried to kill myself?"

"But you weren't trying to kill yourself," Amber reminded him. "You paged me to make sure you wouldn't die."

"Yeah, but Dr Cuddy isn't feeling particularly trusting these days," House explained. "So which is it? Suicide duty or clinic?"

"Clinic," Amber said without even a pause for thought.

"Smart choice," House approved as he turned to go. Henry followed him without any further protest from the stunned group.

As they reached House's office Henry turned to House: "Has Dr Cuddy really ordered suicide watch on you?"

"No," House said. "But it sounded good and I was sure that that was the one thing nobody would want to volunteer for."

"Apparently you got that right," Henry nodded. "So, you're really not suicidal?"

"No," House stated as he sat behind his desk and gestured for Henry to seat himself. "Mind you, Dr Cuddy is of the opinion that this latest stunt of mine was insane, but she does not think I'm suicidal."

"So why did you do it?" Henry asked a little apprehensively. He wasn't at all sure that House would take kindly to prying questions.

"To satisfy my curiosity," House sighed. He didn't really want to discuss it but his dream still disturbed him and he figured Henry would serve as a sounding board for some of his thoughts. He wasn't so sure he wanted to have this conversation with Wilson. "I had a man in the clinic who had been dead for 97 seconds and he tried to get back to that state because he thought they were the best 97 seconds of his life. I have always been of the opinion that the visions you may get during that time are just hallucinations, but he didn't think so. And he was rather convincing."

"I was under the impression that you have been clinically dead before?" Henry wondered.

"Once, yes," House admitted. "The last time I was near death I didn't actually flat line. Some ten years ago or so, when I had the infarction in my thigh I did flat line for about a minute and I had hallucinations. But I had all sorts of drugs in my system then. I just needed to find out if the experience was different this way."

"I thought you were an atheist," Henry mused.

"Maybe an atheistic agnostic is a better description," House pondered. "I see no reason to believe in God, one or many, but I also know that I can be wrong. And no matter how sensible a theory may be empirical evidence will refute it. Besides, life after death and God are two separate issues. However, be that as may, I didn't get any empirical evidence to refute the theory."

"You do know that the Apostle's Creed does not say anything about souls?" Henry pointed out. "If you take it literally it means that you don't exist in any form or idea after death until the resurrection of your body."

"Are you trying to convert me?" House wanted to know.

"No," Henry denied. "I have no problem with your beliefs, whatever they may be. I was just pointing out an interesting fact about a belief system."

"Are you a believer?" House queried.

"As a matter of fact, yes I am," Henry stated calmly. "It just feels right. However, I have no problem whatsoever with those who don't believe. I have my convictions; I don't need to discuss them. You have yours, and I'm sure you have your reasons for them. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone."

"Fair enough I suppose," House conceded. "As I said I have found no proof to change my mind."

"I understand curiosity," Henry conceded. "But I don't quite understand how your curiosity could bring you to performing such a dangerous experiment. You must know that no matter how carefully you prepared for it, there was an actual chance that you might die. I quite believe that you weren't trying to kill yourself, but even so... It seems as if don't really care if you live either."

"Interesting." House stated.

"What is?" Henry wondered.

"I had a weird dream where someone stated that very idea: that I have no life-wish," House explained.

"Really?" Henry was a little surprised. "Who was it?"

"Doña Sebastiana," House said.

"La Santísima Muerte?" Henry exclaimed.

"You know her?" House asked.

"My mother was Mexican," Henry revealed. "I grew up with stories about Doña Sebastiana. Why would you dream about her? I would have thought that the Grim Reaper would have been more likely to appear in your dreams if you were going to dream about Death."

"Beats me," House agreed. "But there she was. And a more nosy entitiy I have yet to encounter."

"Interesting," Henry said.

"That's what I said," House agreed.

"Hmm," Henry mused. "I don't suppose you think you might actually need that psych evaluation Dr Cuddy wants?"

"Well, I need it if I want to work," House pointed out. "But I think I can wait a day or two and just take it easy. As soon as I get that evaluation Cuddy is going to send me to the clinic, so I'm in no hurry."

"Ok, I suppose you know what you're doing," Henry didn't sound totally convinced, though. "But there is something else we need to talk about."

"What?" House asked.

"Me," Henry stated. "The patient died. If we get sued for malpractice it will not look good for the hospital that one of the doctors treating the patient isn't actually a doctor. I think I need to resign."

"You haven't treated anyone," House pointed out. "And as soon as I found out about your lack of credentials I changed your job description. You are hired as my assistant and one of your duties is to observe the candidates for the fellowships. As you didn't actually do anything to the patient you will not be implicated in any liabilites. Anyone can take part in a think tank. The hospital is ok as far as you're concerned."

"I'm glad to hear that," Henry accepted. "But this has rather brought it home to me that when I decided to do this I didn't really think this through."

"Are you resigning?" House asked.

"I'm considering it," Henry admitted. "You cannot hire me anyway and I don't want anyone to suffer because of my dream."

"I can hire you as my assistant," House stated. "I already have. The only question is do I want to keep you around. Of course, if you want to leave you are free to do so, but I'm not going to fire you. At least not yet."

"Thank you," Henry nodded. "That means a lot to me. But I do need to think this through more thoroughly than I originally did."

"You do what you must," House agreed. "But in the mean while you can go and sort my mail and get my dry cleaning."

"You really are something else, Dr House," Henry smiled.

"Hey, you didn't think nearly dying was going to change my personality?" House snorted.

"No, that thought never crossed my mind," Henry said. "I don't think anything would do that."

"Ok then, now leave me alone to have a nap," House instructed Henry as he got up to move to his recliner. "My sleep last night wasn't quite as restful as it could have been."


	3. Hora Mortis

House fell asleep fast enough on his recliner. When he opened his eyes he wasn't in the least surprised to see Death sitting on the ground near him; he was sitting on the ground too, but the grass was soft so he didn't mind. He didn't even need to check his hand to make sure this was a dream since he found himself in a beautiful garden full of flowers. The only thing he did wonder about was: whose dream was this.

"Nice garden," House opened.

"Thank you," Death accepted looking up from the garland of poppies and wheat and other things House wasn't sure he recognised. "I like it."

"So this is the Garden of Death?"

"Hmm," Death nodded. "Not what you were expecting?"

"Not really," House admitted. "I would have thought the Garden of Death would be more barren."

"Why? In nature death means life," Death pointed out. "The flowers die, make seeds, the seeds fall on the ground and new flowers grow. Circle of life, you know."

"You have a point," House accepted. "Old things die and make room for the new."

"It's not quite that simple with human beings, though," Death observed as she finished the garland and set it on her head.

"So, are you going to be here every time I fall asleep from now on?" House asked dryly.

"Gosh, that would be annoying," Death replied. "Besides it would get rather monotonous, too. For both of us."

"But how long are you going to hang around then?" House queried.

"That depends on your answer to my question," Death reminded him.

"Oh yes, let's discuss the meaning of Life," House invited flippantly.

"I'm not interested in the meaning of Life in general," Death pointed out gently. "Just the meaning of your life."

"But don't we need to have some general frame of reference first?" House suggested.

"Nice try," Death acknowledged. "I know you hate personal questions and discussions but you cannot escape this time. Death is always very personal, no getting away from that. I end individual lives, each unique and different. Some deaths make this world a better place, some deprive this world of something priceless but the perception of the world is rarely the same as the perception of the individual about to die. Most lives I just take because it's time. Sometimes I have to end a life even when it shouldn't be the time yet, but prolonging it would be cruel – for one reason or another. And sometimes, just sometimes something about the person gets my attention and I need to know more."

"And you need to know more about me?" House asked. "Why?"

"I don't really know," Death mused. "Something to do with your personality I think. You're different. The people around you see you as some kind of a force of nature; you are almost larger than life. You used to be almost painfully alive."

"You got that painful part right, at least," House was feeling almost embarrassed.

"I know," Death replied quietly with a strange flash of compassion in her eyes. "But you were still alive. There were puzzles in this life for you to solve, things you wanted to know! You were not ready to let go. Now it's like you just don't care enough to hang on. I can't read you anymore like I did before. And I need to know."

"I don't know," House shrugged. "I'm not sure what it is you are asking and I'm not sure I have any answers. I don't want to kill myself that much I do know. But has my life meaning? I don't know. Sure I'm a doctor and I save lives, some of them probably lives that matter, but there are plenty of doctors and some of them are as good as I am. But does my life have personal meaning to me? I think I know myself well enough to know most of my motivations and reasons for doing things, but I rarely do any deeper soul-searching – of course that could be because I don't believe in souls. I always thought you just hang in here the best you can and then when your time is up, its up and nothing you can do about it."

"Normally that is the case," Death agreed. "But sometimes there is something you can do. Sometimes it really is the will to live that makes all the difference. Or the will to die."

"And now you want me to find out which I have?" House asked. "To be or not to be; that is the question."

"But only you can tell if it is nobler to withstand the slings and arrows of capricious fate," Death smiled. "I cannot even tell you if you will dream, perchance."

"And you are not going away until I have given you an answer?" House ventured.

"No, I will not go away until I know if your life matters to you," Death stated.

"I'm not waking up from this dream until I have the answer," House suddenly realised. "Am I?"

"No," Death answered. "This is it."

"I'm dying?" It was only fractionally a question, mostly just a realization.

"That is one option," Death affirmed. House saw tears in her eyes and he frowned in puzzlement. As one tear started to make its way down her cheek he caught it with his thumb.

"Why are you crying?" House wanted to know.

"One of us should," Death shrugged.

"You behave like my life really mattered to you," House was mystified.

"But does it matter to you?" Death repeated her question.

House looked down and rubbed his fingers together feeling the almost ice-cold tear he had caught. He thought for a moment and then he looked up: "I don't know."

----------------------------

As soon as House had settled in his recliner Henry had gone to the conference room and started to sort out the mail. He had been at it for about twenty minutes when Dr Chase walked in.

"Dr Dobson?" Chase checked.

"Mr Dobson," Henry replied. "Though you can call me Henry. I'm House's assistant, not a doctor."

"But didn't I see you working on the diagnosis?" Chase was confused.

"Yes," Henry nodded. "Due to my previous job I have an extensive knowledge of medicine and House saw no reason not to take advantage of that. In addition to that, part of my duties is to observe the candidates to the fellowships and the easiest way to do it is from a position of equality."

"Well, after three years with him, nothing surprises me anymore," Chase sighed. "However, that was not why I came here. I need a word with House."

"He is asleep, so unless it's something urgent and something I cannot help you with, I'd rather not wake him up," Henry said.

"It's not urgent," Chase revealed. "I just need to borrow the plastic surgeon you have among the candidates."

"I'll let him know as soon as he ... My God!" Henry had looked up towards House's office as he spoke and suddenly he sprung up staring at House.

"What?" Chase was alarmed.

"I'm sorry, nothing," Henry shook his head as if to clear it. "The light just hit the glass strangely and I thought I saw someone else there as well. I'm ..." Henry's voice petered out as he took another look at House. "There is something wrong now."

Chase turned to look too and to him it seemed that House was just sleeping. Except that some voice at the back of his head suddenly reminded him that he has seen House sleep before – several times – and Henry was right. Something was wrong. They both rushed to House and when Chase touched him he realised that House's skin was pale, cool and clammy and his pulse was rapid but weak.

"Looks like hypovolemic shock," Henry stated anxiously.

"I concur," Chase agreed. "Just wish I knew where and why!" With Henry's help Chase quickly got rid of House's shirt and t-shirt.

"Look at the liver," Henry said. There was some discoloration around the area.

"But he isn't jaundiced," Chase frowned.

"It isn't necessarily his liver that is failing," Henry reminded him. "Liver is full of blood vessels. It's possible that the electrocution damaged some, or even just one of them. It may have been bleeding slowly since then and only now either got bigger or finally reached a critical point."

"Surely House would have noticed," Chase wondered as he reached for the phone to get help.

"He would expect some soreness anyway," Henry insisted. "And some of the symptoms would be masked by the Vicodin he takes for his leg."

"Could be," Chase agreed. "It will have to do as a working theory for now. I will have to go poking into his liver anyway and after that we may know more. Let's hope it really is just a leaking blood vessel and that I can repair it."

The team Chase had called came quickly and they took House. Chase and Henry followed but had to take another elevator.

"I still cannot believe that House didn't notice anything," Chase sighed.

"Actually," Henry pondered. "He may have."

"What do you mean?" Chase asked.

"The reason he was sleeping in his office was because he had slept badly last night," Henry explained. "He had been dreaming of Death."

"He had dreams about dying?" Chase found that strange for some reason.

"No, not of dying," Henry explained. "He said he had a dream where he was talking with Death."

"You mean the Grim Reaper?" Chase was surprised. "How very Ingmar Bergman."

"Except that House's Death was a woman," Henry nodded.

"But did they play chess?" Chase was trying to alleviate his anxiety.

"House didn't say," Henry was willing to co-operate; he wasn't feeling too calm either.

"Was She who you thought you saw in his office?" Chase suddenly made some connections. "Death, I mean."

"Perspective of you," Henry noted. "Yes. Having just had that conversation with him, when the light hit the glass partially blinding me, I did, for a very short moment, think that a woman in white was holding House. Sort of like a Pietà, if you know what I mean. For a second there I could have sworn I even saw tears on her cheeks. Of course it was just my overactive imagination, but it did give me a bit of a shock."

"I think House can be grateful that you have an overactive imagination," Chase said as they reached the surgical wing. "If you hadn't had Death on your mind, you might not have noticed that he wasn't just sleeping but there was something wrong with him as well."

"Let's hope we were in time," Henry sighed. "I don't think this hospital is ready to lose him yet. I know I'm not."

"Me neither," Chase nodded. "And I'd hate to see what it would do to Dr Wilson or Dr Cuddy."


	4. What was lost

_Thanks for the reviews. The start has been a bit slow, but I think I'm starting to hit my stride now. __But updates take place during week-ends again._

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"I don't know," House repeated with a frown. "I just don't know if my life matters to me. And I don't even know how to find the answer either. Could be Wilson is right and I really am depressed."

"No, you're not depressed," Death shook her head wiping her tears away. "At least not in the clinical sense your friend means."

"You sound sure!" House was surprised.

"Sure I'm sure," Death shrugged. "Had Depression been anywhere near you he would have told me. Besides, as you can see he isn't paying any attention to you now either." Death nodded towards a group of – presumably – men in monkish robes (with hoods up) that House hadn't noticed before. They were working in the garden, tending to the flowers, mowing the grass in places where it needed mowing and doing other things that need to be done in a garden. Taking a better look House saw that the hands coming out of the wide sleeves were skeletal.

"Ok, so Depression is one of them," House felt a little overwhelmed. "Who are the rest of them?"

"Plague, Pestilence, War, Famine, Natural Catastrophe, Murder and Mayhem, you know, the usual suspects" Death listed.

"Sounds like a real cheerful crowd," House observed dryly.

"Dead funny," Death deadpanned eliciting an acknowledging smile from House.

"I have to admit that I would never have thought they would be the type to like gardening," House mused.

"They find it soothing," Death enlightened House gently. "Death, especially the way they bring it about, is never dignified. We see too much and we see it too clearly."

"I suppose that makes sense," House accepted.

"Mind you, just because Depression hasn't been around you don't mean you aren't depressed in another sense of the word," Death pointed out. "You're not suicidal, but you have lost your active will to live. I think we need to find out when and why before we can figure out a way to determine if you want _to be or not to be_."

"We?" House queried. "You're taking this rather personally, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Death almost blushed – House was sure that she would have had she had any blood in her veins (if she had veins). "I got involved. Shouldn't; I'm supposed to stay objective. That, I think, is why I don't know what happens after death. If I knew what, if anything, is waiting for the people I take it could affect my decisions those few times when I can choose to end or not to end a life. I'm sure you understand. When you're personally invested in the patient, it's difficult to make objective decisions about his care. And I'm personally invested in you. I've shadowed you too long; your life matters to me when all I should be interested in is your death – in due course, of course."

"And is now _due course_?" House wanted to know.

"Could be," Death acknowledged. "Doesn't have to be, depends on how things go and how willing you are to live."

"So if I say that I want to live you will let me?" House asked.

"If you say it with conviction," Death answered with a knowing, sad smile.

"And there lies the rub," House nodded. "I know I enjoyed life during those two months that I was pain-free after the Ketamine treatment. And I know that after Cuddy had perjured herself for me I didn't feel really happy about it. I was sorry she had had to do that, but the end result – though it was my _get out of jail free_ -card – didn't really matter. I wasn't happy; I wasn't really looking forward to getting back to my life. I have had interesting cases that have alleviated the boredom from time to time; this process of finding my new fellows is keeping me relatively amused, but I don't know if that – and what other things I have going on in my life – are enough for me to really want to live."

"I did not see you after the treatment until it had started to wear off," Death ruminated. "One of the few periods in a long time when I wasn't shadowing you. But I saw a difference in you right away. It was very subtle but it was there. For some reason I assumed something else had happened than just the treatment wearing off. To me you seemed resigned to the return of the pain; not calmly resigned, you were definitely angry, but there was something else going on. You seemed reserved with your friend Wilson, in a way I hadn't seen before."

"He..." House hesitated, but decided that whatever he told Death would be totally confidential. "He refused to believe that the pain was returning when I told him so. He wouldn't prescribe me any Vicodin."

"You told him that the pain was returning?" Death wanted to be sure.

"Yes," House nodded. "He decided that I was trying to score Vicodin to get high."

"Hadn't you been without any for the whole time of your rehab?" Death asked.

"Yes," House was staring at the ground.

"And he still thought of you as an addict," Death couldn't keep her disappointment at Dr Wilson out of her voice. "I think that could be called irony."

"How so?" House was puzzled.

"I can't even remember how many times I have heard him tell you that you push and push at him," Death explained. "That you test him and try to get him to leave you so that you can say that sure, that's what everybody does. And then the one time you don't push, when you really turn to him needing a friend, he is the one that breaks it."

"He is still my friend," House pointed out.

"Yes, I know," Death agrees. "But you only trust him up to a point. And it's not the point it used to be before. Especially after his stunt with Tritter."

"There is only so much you can expect of friends," House tried to shrug. "Tritter was destroying his life, his practice. His patients were suffering."

"There are other doctors, he already referred his patient to them," Death dismissed. "His life wasn't that bad, it wasn't even as bad as yours has been from time to time when you were looking for work after having been fired from yet another hospital. Besides, it wasn't his decision not to lie anymore that was the problem there, his working with Tritter was. He didn't need to do it behind your back he could have told you that he didn't want to lie anymore. He could have gone to Dr Cuddy and tell her and let the hospital lawyers work the deal out with the DA. He didn't need to work with Tritter who was misusing his power as an officer of the law."

"They didn't think he was doing anything particularly wrong," House reminded Death. "Both Cuddy and Wilson were of the opinion that I had brought it on myself."

"In a way you had, of course," Death agreed. "The thermometer incident did make you the target, but you already spent a night in jail for it. That was definitely sufficient punishment given the offence. Or it would have been for any normal person. Anything after that was due to Tritter's obsessions. And Dr Cuddy and Wilson should have seen it. Ok, I admit that Dr Cuddy was understandably distracted at that time, but not all the time. She dropped the ball. As did Wilson, only Wilson didn't even have enough self-knowledge to know that he would regret what he did and would try to undo it."

"Wilson has never been the most self-aware person," House concurred. "Hence the three divorces."

"But his inability to see himself is not the only problem," Death pondered. "He cannot see you either. And that has caused problems between you; his need to try and change you to something he might be better able to understand."

"He thinks I need to learn humility," House shrugged.

"And you haven't told him that it has been tried before," Death responded. "And now that he has lost your trust you never will tell him, will you?"

"Not if I die now, I won't," House pointed out.

"You won't even if you don't die," Death stated.

"Highly unlikely," House agreed.

"But even with all that in mind, you see him as your friend?" Death checked.

"Yes. Could be because I don't have that many to choose from," House observed self-deprecatingly.

"You know, I think you could be surprised if you took a better look around you some time," Death told him.

-------------------------------------------

Cuddy and Wilson were standing in the OR observation gallery with Henry. Nobody was talking. They were all totally focused on Chase who was working on House. Finally Cuddy broke.

"He always looks so indestructible," Cuddy swallowed to clear her throat from the tears. "He walks the halls like he owns the hospital – hell, like he owns the World – but doesn't give a damn and you just think that he will always be there. Like even a bomb couldn't remove him. His personality is so strong that you forget that he is a human being and exactly as frail as all human beings are."

"It's hardly surprising that we forget that he isn't indestructible when he believes that he is," Wilson ground out almost bitterly. He was deathly worried about his friend.

"Really?" Henry questioned. "I haven't noticed that he thinks of himself as particularly indestructible."

"For crying out loud!" Wilson turned to Henry and nearly yelled. "In all likelihood he is under the knife now because he stuck a knife into a socket to try and _nearly_ kill himself! Any normal human being would have considered the possibility that he could miss with that _nearly_ and actually kill himself."

"He did call for help before he did it so I think we can assume that he considered it," Henry pointed out calmly.

"If he had really considered it he wouldn't have done it!" Wilson insisted.

"We are still talking about House?" Cuddy turned to the guys. "You know that when his curiosity is whetted nothing will deter him."

"Besides, his method of choice was not that certain anyway," Henry reminded them. "Most people who do something like that end up with just the burned hand. One could almost say he was lucky – at least as far as his experiment went – that it worked the way it did."

"Lucky or not, the fact remains that he risked his life and he didn't care!" Wilson insisted.

"Yes, that is the fact," Henry agreed. "He risked his life and he didn't care. Not that he thought himself indestructible; that he didn't care. That is the point."

"What do you mean?" Cuddy was all ears though Wilson was shaking his head with exasperation.

"This morning, when he came in, I had a chance to talk with him for a moment," Henry revealed turning to look at House again. "I told him that though I didn't think he had been trying to kill himself, I thought he didn't have any particular will to live either. He agreed."

"He told you that he didn't care if he lived or died?" Cuddy wanted to be clear.

"Not in those words, but yes, that is pretty much what he said," Henry nodded.

"Now will you believe me that he is depressed!" Wilson turned to Cuddy.

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't," Cuddy wasn't going to agree with anything without some further information – preferably directly from House. "But once he is out of danger he is so going to see Dr Stone."

"That may take longer than we anticipated," Henry observed suddenly. "Dr Chase seems to have found something."

Cuddy and Wilson turned to look down again and saw that Chase had stopped doing – whatever it was he had been doing. He looked up.

"Dr Wilson," Chase talked to the mike. "I think I need you down here. We found something."


	5. Steps

_Thank you for the reviews. Here is another chapter and see you next weekend :)_

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Wilson was down in two minutes. He didn't waste time in scrubbing in he just donned protective clothing and a nurse helped him to the gloves.

"What is it?" Wilson asked, though he was pretty sure what this was all about. There were only so many reasons why Chase would have wanted an oncologist to take a look.

"Three small tumours in his liver," Chase answered. "I got the bleeding and I'm taking the tumours out but I need your opinion on them before I close in case I need to look for more."

"How big are they?" Wilson asked.

"The biggest is the size of a smallish pea," Chase replied. "The two others are even smaller. I wouldn't have noticed them at all, but the first one was right next to the bleeding site so I took a better look and found two more."

"Ok, hand them over," Wilson nodded mentally crossing his fingers.

Cuddy and Henry had heard the exchange and were as anxious to find the answers as Chase and Wilson. Unlike Wilson, Cuddy had actually physically crossed her fingers. At Wilson's "First one's benign" Cuddy let out a little of the breath she had been holding. The next one was benign as well and now even Henry relaxed a little. The third one took a little longer and Cuddy started to hold her breath again.

"Not benign," Wilson sighed.

"Need I look for more?" Chase asked.

"No, you can close up," Wilson told him. "I'm fairly sure you got them all and even if you didn't we can get them with RFA. Besides, they will in all likelihood be benign like the two smaller ones were. This one started out as benign as well but is just turning cancerous. Once House has recovered enough from this operation we need to do some more tests, but I think this is straight liver cancer and we caught it in good time."

"What do you know," Henry mused quietly, though Cuddy did hear him. "It seems that even in House's madness there's method. Had he not felt compelled to electrocute himself we might not have found his cancer this early on. And as we all know, early detection is everything when it comes to cancer."

"Thank God," Cuddy sighed. Then she turned rather ferociously to Henry and practically threatened him: "But don't you DARE tell House that electrocuting himself was a good idea!"

"No, I don't think telling him that would be very wise," Henry did agree with a sympathetic smile. It was obvious that Dr Cuddy cared deeply for House – in what way, Henry wasn't sure he wanted to venture – and it was equally obvious that House had put her through the wringer more than once, one way or the other. Not always through any fault of his own, but still, caring for House appeared to be very risky business. Henry rather wished he could have a little more choice about it, but he was fairly sure he was hooked, too. There just was something about House...

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"I don't think looking around will suddenly reveal a whole hoard of people just waiting to make friends with me," House doubted with a small rueful smile. "I do have a bit of a reputation that most sane people run screaming from."

"But surely there are quite a number of _insane_ people around," Death smiled back.

"Perhaps," House partially agreed. "But it takes a special kind of insanity to get along with me."

"But don't you think you could still open your mind to the possibility anyway?" Death asked. "Even if Wilson is still your friend, and I know that you cannot live for your friends unless you want to live for yourself first, it would still be good for you to have more than two friends."

"Who is the other one? Cameron?" House asked suspiciously.

"No," Death replied. "You do have a friendship with her, but she is not enough of your equal to be the kind of friend I mean. No, the other one is Dr Cuddy."

"You do know that she is my boss and the spawn of Satan?" House insisted.

"Nevertheless, you like her and she is your friend," Death was amused. "But you still need more friends like her and Wilson."

"Well, if I survive this time, I will obviously have found some kind of purpose or _joie de vivre_ or whatever and then it is possible that I might, under certain circumstances, maybe think about possibly trying to find a new friend," House managed to spit out.

"See, that wasn't so hard," Death approved. "Besides, you already have found someone who could be a very good friend."

"You mean someone new?" House was a little sceptical.

"Yeah," Death nodded. "Though he is somewhat old, too."

"As long as he isn't something borrowed and blue as well," House insisted.

"No, not blue," Death reassured him. "Not even in spirit. Well, not much. Just enough to understand what blue is."

"You're talking about Scooter," House recognised.

"He understands you pretty well already, though you have only just met," Death pointed out.

"Henry's ok," House accepted. "And I suppose in time, maybe ..."

"Just keep an open mind," Death told him. "Sometimes you can find friends in the unlikeliest places."

"Like in your dreams!" House said pointedly. "Your friendship – if that is what this is – definitely did surprise me, so I suppose it is possible that I haven't quite appreciated the weird tastes that people – and beings – can have."

"I don't think you're so weird," Death shrugged. "Of course, having conversations with Death might be considered a little eccentric, but other than that, I've seen weirder."

"Tell me," House suddenly wanted to know. "If this is my dream, or hallucination, why do I see you like that? I mean, the Grim Reaper would be a more logical representation. Even Doña Sebastiana is just a skeleton in a dress. So why do I see you as a young woman?"

"You could be merging the stories and paintings of Death and the Maiden that are abundant enough," Death suggested. "If you have Russian ancestry you might be aware of the old stories where I am depicted as a young woman. You could be influenced by the Japanese Goddess of Death Izanami. Or it could be that I just prefer this form to the hundreds of different shapes people have given me over the centuries."

"Now that was real helpful," House griped. "Not!"

"Well if you prefer I can take another form," Death proposed.

"No need, I like you the way you are now," House refused. "I was just curious."

"Ok, but don't you think your curiosity would be put to better use in trying to figure out why you lost your will to live?" Death asked. "I know Wilson played some part in it but even though he broke it, you are willing to fix it and he is still your friend, even if the nature of the friendship has altered somewhat."

"Not that much," House shrugged. "He has been forever trying to manipulate me, trying to protect me from _melting my wings_ as he put it. This time he just went a little further than I had believed he would."

"I think you have told him several times that he needs to believe you have a problem, because if you just have pain, he cannot fix you and that would make him feel useless," Death mused.

"Or words to that effect, yeah," House granted. "Not that he ever listens to me. I keep telling him that he needs to feel needed and that need clouds his judgement – that is how he got married every time: he started out as a friend because he saw that his soon-to-be-wives needed one, and before he knew it he was skipping down the aisle."

"I thought it's the bride who _skips down the aisle_," Death interrupted. "Isn't the groom supposed to be waiting at the altar?"

"I wasn't being literal," House huffed. "What I meant was that he was dancing down the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire better known as marriage."

"You sound a little contemptuous about his marriages," Death pondered. "Not exactly bitter, though. Did you resent him marrying and leaving you behind?"

"He didn't leave me behind," House pointed out. "That was the biggest problem with his marriages – or at least the last two. All I had to do was whistle and there he was. Anytime of the day or week."

"I can understand his wives having a problem with that, but why do you say it like it was a bad thing?" Death questioned.

"Because it was; still is," House explained. "I will take advantage of people given half a chance; I'd be a fool not to. But had he grown a backbone and told me that his marriage, his wife was more important and that I would need to start measuring my interference or the friendship would be over, I would have accepted it. Family comes first – that is a fair enough position."

"But you are his family," Death pointed out.

"Not like that," House shook his head. "Besides, I wouldn't have gone anywhere just because he wasn't at my beck and call at all hours. Who knows, I might even have been forced to find a second friend to take up the slack."

"So Wilson alone isn't the key to your indifference," Death nodded. "What happened? Why did the witch-hunt Tritter instigated affect you the way it did. I can understand it having been stressful and hard when it was on, but once you were free of him, why didn't you – well, bounce back?"

"I think I got tired," House was now lying on the grass, though he wasn't quite sure when he had changed positions. He was looking up at the perfect powder puff clouds that drifted serenely on the clear blue sky above. "Not exactly depression kind of tired, but just tired. Tired of needing to explain myself to people, even people who should have known without yet another explanation. Tired of being treated like a drug addict. Tired of begging, I suppose. Just tired of it all."

"Tired of being treated like you had never grown up though you have never even been a child?" Death ventured.

"Yeah," House sighed. "That too."

"You didn't use to care about that," Death said. "You have been refusing to explain yourself to people for years and ignoring their judgement."

"Yeah, but the Tritter incident proved that even those I had thought accepted me as I am, more or less, give or take a few quirks and outrageous treatment suggestions, were measuring me with the same yardstick everybody else was," House deliberated. "I do hide my pain – all of it, not just the physical one. I do wield my cane in people's faces so that they forget that I'm a cripple. I do indulge in childish behaviour to amuse myself. That is all true. I pop the pills like they are candy to hide how badly I need them. I hide everything in plain sight so that people will grant me at least some privacy. But Cuddy and Wilson know more than most people. They are doctors, Cuddy knows exactly what was done to my leg and Wilson has seen my file with all the information. They should be able to see what is just for show and what is real. True, there is a murky area in between show and reality, too, but the core truth should not be so hard for them to see. Except that they don't."

"They aren't objective you know," Death reminded him. "They are too close to you and that blinds them to things they would otherwise see. If they saw it all they would feel helpless and that is not a feeling anyone likes."

"I suppose," House mumbled. "I know I hate that feeling. You?"

"Yes," Death grieved. "You'd think as Death I'd feel powerful; after all I can decide on life and death. But if I want to do my job ethically... There are so many lives I'd rather not take and lives I would so want to take, but that would be interfering in an unacceptable way. The free will humans have screws up this world quite badly enough. The last thing world needs is capricious Death as well."

"But aren't you just now being – well not capricious exactly, but somewhat arbitrary?" House asked.

"Are you trying to make me kill you?" Death made a pointed question.

"No, just curious," House denied immediately.

"Curiosity, though you're not a cat, can be fatal," Death stated with a meaningful glance. "Yes, I am not following quite the rules with you now. You are definitely one of the cases where I do have discretionary powers, but I got too close to you. I have lost my objectivity. But I'm the only one doing this job so I cannot hand you over to someone else. I'll just have to do my best."

"Once this dream slash hallucination is over, will I see you again?" House wanted to know.

"No," Death replied immediately. "Unless you don't die in which case you will see me one more time very briefly."

"But you will see me?" House asked.

"I think I better keep my distance from now on," Death acknowledged sorrowfully. "But yes, I will still see you since you will go on working in a hospital and you will have patients."

"So if I want to live, I can sort of keep you around still," House mused.

"That would be a novel reason," Death couldn't help but laugh. "Live for Death. I suppose if that does the trick I can accept it. Only it doesn't, does it?"

"No, not entirely," House recognized. "Though it might be a step in the right direction."

"Good," Death approved. "Let's find another step towards that direction then."


	6. Tears

_Thank you for your reviews and since it's week-end, here is the next chapter._

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"No signs of him waking up?" Cuddy asked Chase as soon as she walked into House's hospital room. Chase and Wilson were there too and Henry was following Cuddy.

"Not yet," Chase responded. "But anaesthetics should wear off soon. I think we caught the bleeding in time, before the loss could cause any brain damage but naturally, we cannot know for sure until he wakes up."

"Did you call his parents?" Cuddy then turned to Wilson.

"Not yet," Wilson sighed. "I don't know what to say."

"Surely they need to be notified, soon," Henry frowned.

"Actually, I rather suspect House would much rather that they weren't notified at all," Cuddy mused. "But if Chase is wrong and there is brain damage, they deserve to know."

"And I have no idea what I'm going to say to them," Wilson moaned. "I mean how do you tell someone that their son tried to kill himself, only he wasn't really trying to kill himself? Do I pretend that House stumbled in his office and just happened to have a knife in his hand and it just happened to go straight into a socket as he fell and oops, he got a shock. But not to worry, we managed to restart his heart. Unfortunately this _accidental_ electrocution resulted in a slow internal bleeding and he collapsed at work again and we had to operate only to find that he has liver cancer. Yeah, I'm really keen on making that call."

"But don't we need them here as next of kin?" Henry asked.

"I have his medical proxy," Cuddy informed Henry. "So that is covered. But I still think his mother deserves to be notified of what is going on, though probably not quite the way James was thinking."

"Why don't I make the call," Chase suggested. "I am his attending, after all."

"And what are you going to say?" Wilson wanted to know.

"I just tell them that House collapsed in his office due to internal bleeding and during the operation we found that the reason for it was liver cancer but we are sure we caught it in time and unless there are unforeseen complications he will be fine," Chase shrugged as he turned to leave the room. "Page me as soon as he starts to wake up or something else happens."

"Smart boy," Henry approved.

"He used to work for House," Cuddy pointed out. "He has learned to be economical with the truth when it comes to the next of kin."

"House is economical with the truth to everyone, not just the next of kin," Wilson complained. He didn't like this waiting; he wanted to know **now** what damage House had managed to do to himself. If he even was still _himself_.

"That sounded very personal," Henry observed. Any kind of distraction from the waiting seemed like a good idea to him.

"Yeah, very personal," Wilson felt ready to rant though he kept his voice low. "I don't mind him lying to me when he is just teasing me or setting me up for a practical joke. Well, at least not after some reflection. I do it sometimes to him! After all, that's just what we do. But he never tells me important things. I try to find out how depressed he is and he just deflects. I try to help him but he just avoids me. And he won't let Lisa any closer."

"I don't try as hard as you do," Cuddy muttered almost with defiance. "I don't have the time. But he is one of my doctors; I need to know that he is functional. And if he comes out of this ok, he is not getting back to work until Dr Stone has cleared him. I'm not cutting him any slack for having nearly died."

"So what happened about a year ago with Detective Tritter, the free hand he was given and the deal with him was one of your attempts to help Dr House," Henry asked.

"How...?" Wilson and Cuddy both stared at Henry.

"People talk," Henry shrugged. "I look trustworthy, I'm a good listener and I just seem to be able to draw all sorts of confidences from people. Dr Cameron actually got rather passionate, even after all this time, when she recounted the incident. Even if she was of the opinion that most of it was House's own fault; though I did get the impression that she was mostly trying to convince herself of it, since the idea of an officer of the law misusing his powers did not fit well with her world view. Surprisingly innocent young lady, I have to say, considering that she worked for House for three years."

"House needed to go to rehab," Wilson defended himself. "He was totally out of control."

"Because of the witch-hunt or for no reason at all?" Henry queried.

"He nearly cut a little girl in half," Cuddy intoned.

"So his judgement was impaired," Henry nodded. "And you don't believe that it had anything to do with the pain he was suffering because you had cut off his supply of painkillers?"

"He doesn't eat Vicodin just for the pain," Wilson insisted. "He takes it to get high."

"I know I'm not a doctor," Henry mused. "But I still have a whole load of medical knowledge and from what I have read – and seen – you don't get high on Vicodin if you are in pain. You get neutral; able to do your work."

"You have known him only for a very short time," Cuddy advised Henry. "You don't really know what he can be like."

"Perhaps," Henry conceded. "I think you are wrong in your assessment of Dr House, but as you said, I have known him only for a relatively short time so I'm perfectly willing to entertain the notion that I'm wrong. But if we assume that you are right; that Dr House needs to change; that he needs to stop taking painkillers, that he needs to stop being rude to people, to do his clinic hours, be a nicer, milder, more mundane person who goes about the hospital smiling and pretending to be humble and aw shucks so nice, I still have to question your methods. I mean you apparently have tried everything you can think of to make him change – I don't for one minute believe that the deal with Tritter was your first attempt in getting him to detox and learn humility – but having tried all that, I have to ask you: how is it working?"

------------------------------

"Shall we walk?" Death asked House. "We could take a tour round my garden. And if you're good, I might even let you have a word with Pestilence. Infectious diseases being your speciality."

"You think he would tip me off on some new disease and the chance to be the first to discover it and possibly name it after myself would rekindle my wish to live?" House teased her.

"If you were someone else, I might try that," Death smiled. "But you don't care. You're not interested in your fame; it's handy sometimes and it also brings interesting cases to you, but other than that, you have no use for it. You don't need to immortalise your name. In fact I'm fairly sure you don't want to immortalise it, as it is also your father's name."

"I could always give my first name to the disease," House pointed out. "Greg's syndrome or something."

"Except that hardly anyone knows you as Greg," Death said. "You are _House_ to nearly everyone."

"There is that," House agreed. "And you're right. I don't care about fame. If I could turn it into a nice wad of cash I might feel differently about it of course."

"Do you think I was born yesterday?" Death glared at him (though there was still that twinkle in her eye; bloody happy creature this Death, House thought). "We both know that you could easily turn your fame into cash. You could do lecture tours and charge almost anything you want for them. You could write books and articles and publishing houses and medical journals would fight to get them. But you don't really want more money; you have enough to fulfil your needs. You hate to work, especially when it means writing something for publishing because that means going over the same old stuff over and over again; first the rewrites then the proof reading then the corrections. Too boring for you. You're perfectly happy to have your fellows do all the writing as long as you have the interesting job of solving the puzzles."

"Since this is my dream, or hallucination," House mused. "There isn't much point in me arguing, is there? Since basically I would be just arguing with myself."

"If this is your dream or hallucination," Death concurred neutrally.

"But you are claiming that you control it?" House reminded Death.

"True, that is what I claimed," Death nodded. "But I believe your opinion is that everybody lies."

"It works with humans," House pointed out. "But I'm not sure you have _body_ enough to fall into the category of _everybody_."

"I do have some substance," Death pondered. "But no, I don't think you could say I have a body. Not really."

"Well, whatever you are, hallucination, dream, real or combination of all, you are right," House sighed. "I do like puzzles."

"And since you're world famous you tend to get at least a puzzle a week," Death reminded him. "It used to be enough to keep you interested in life – along with all the hospital gossip and your soaps and music. Why no more?"

"You know, they have been rather interesting lately," House considered. "Especially Ms Osama. Her need for secrecy meant that we really had to invent different ways to find the answers. And pulling the wool over the NASA's eyes wasn't displeasing either."

"Even if the shuttles do fly over New Jersey?" Death checked mischievously.

"She will be the most health and safety conscious astronaut they will ever have," House dismissed. "She probably won't even get drunk ever again for fear of blabbing her secret to someone while intoxicated so she won't even be suffering from hangovers. And I'm sure that cannot be said about any of the others."

"You're probably right," Death agreed. "Does this mean that you're starting to think your old life wasn't that bad, after all? That if it was interesting enough to live before Tritter, it could be that again now after Tritter?"

"Maybe," House deliberated. "To be honest, I hadn't given a thought to it, my life that is, until now. For a long time I have just walked the walk. You know left, right then repeat, and not really stopped to think if the interesting parts of my life outweigh the misery."

"Do they?" Death asked. They had been walking for a while and now they came to a river flowing through the garden. Death stopped at the bank and gestured for a boat to come and get them.

"I'm not sure," House sighed. "I feel at peace here; I feel like nothing anywhere else means anything."

"But you know you cannot stay for much longer, don't you," Death told him.

"Yeah, I think I do," House nodded. "Is this Styx?"

"No," Death said. "Styx is a river of Hate. I don't want hate in my garden. This is Acheron, the river of tears. See," Death stepped into the boat, sat down and scooped some water into her hand. "That is why the water is so clear. Like tears."

"And are tears so much better then?" House asked as he followed Death into the boat and sat down. As soon as he was seated the boat, which had no oars nor a boatman, started to drift gently downriver.

"Yes," Death smiled at him. "Tears are a sign that something matters. Something is important. You can cry for joy, too, not just sorrow." Death paused for a moment. "Your Mother will grieve if you die."

"I know," House stated quietly. "I hate causing her pain, but it seems that I cannot help it."

"It is not your fault," Death pointed out. "She is your mother. A child is a great source of joy for a mother but when the child is born the mother also feels great pain because of the separation. Not just the physical pain of birth, but emotional pain because now the child is no longer inseparable part of the mother, protected and sheltered by her body. It is separate being that will eventually be totally independent of the mother. And exposed and vulnerable. No matter what the mother does, she will never again be able to totally protect her child. There will always be joy and pain together from then on. It's part of the job. You cannot take any of that responsibility on your own shoulders."

"That doesn't mean that I have to go out of my way to make things difficult for her," House pointed out ruefully.

"Preferably not," Death agreed. "But it's still your life. Nobody can live it for you."

"No, nobody can," House repeated. "I'm just no longer sure how even I can live my life."

"If you find, on consideration, that you have enough things to live for," Death stated carefully. "Then you have to find out a way to do it. To live your life. You _should_ be intelligent enough to figure it out as long as you find the will to do it."

"So I have my Mother, my job and some friends in my life," House itemised. "My Mother will be there for me as long as she lives; I don't think I could do anything bad enough to make her go away. I know how to do my job, and I think I have started to find it rather interesting again. The thing is I'm not sure my friends and I are really that happy with each other. I tend to be rather mean to them from time to time."

Death nearly laughed at House's rueful tone, but she managed to refrain. Instead she said: "You know it's not that you are mean to your friends, from time to time, that bothers them. They expect it and they can deal with it. What hurts them is that you shut them out. You need to let them closer to you. I know you need your privacy. You are not the type to talk about your feelings and hug people and tell them that you love them. But you need to let them a little closer to you and you need to let **them** hug you, from time to time."

"I'm not sure that sounds terribly appealing," House grunted.

"Maybe not, but how has your previous method worked for you?" Death asked pointedly.


	7. Talking shop

"Working?" Wilson huffed. "House is not cooperating. No matter what we try!"

"I may not be a very big fan of Dr Phil's," Henry informed them. "But he does have a point when he says that the only person you can change is you. Trying to change someone else never works."

"But he is killing himself," Cuddy despaired.

"Unfortunately that is his prerogative," Henry reminded them. "And trying to push him into changing will accomplish nothing. He will just resent the interference and draw deeper into himself."

"But he knows that we are trying to help him," Wilson defended their actions.

"I understand you suffer from migraines from time to time Dr Wilson?" Henry remarked receiving a nod from Wilson. "When you have forgotten to fill your prescription and come to work with a migraine and then try to find someone to write you one, how helpful do you find the suggestions that it's only a headache so you should take an aspirin and stop complaining?"

"House does not suffer from migraines," Cuddy tried to deflect.

"True," Henry agreed. "Migraines happen only from time to time. House suffers constant pain in his tight - not unlike a migraine I understand - only it goes on 24/7."

"You seem to know an awful lot about House and his pain," Cuddy suddenly observed with some suspicion.

"I read his medical file," Henry confessed nonchalantly.

"What?" Wilson stared at Henry almost in awe. "Are you channelling House or something? You haven't been working for him long enough to **learn **to be this much like him."

"How did you get your hands on it?" Cuddy wanted to know. She knew for a fact that even now the file was locked up in her desk. She had taken it from the locked filing cabinet as soon as House had gone into the operation room and as soon as it was no longer needed she had taken it to her office. There was no way Henry could have read it.

"Well, I told you that I look trustworthy," Henry shrugged. "When you wear a white coat and look like you know what you are doing, people seldom question you. I thought it was a prudent move to find out as much as I can about my potential boss."

"I think we finally know what House would be like if he hadn't had that infarction and if we managed to teach him some manners," Wilson said to Cuddy.

"Yeah," Cuddy agreed. "And frankly, I don't think trying to teach him manners is worth the effort if this is the end result anyway."

"Any changes?" Chase walked in right then. He stopped to look at the people in House's room with some puzzlement but nobody enlightened him.

"No, not yet," Wilson answered.

"Hmm. He should be starting to come out of it by now," Chase frowned.

"We don't know how much Vicodin he had taken before the anaesthetics," Henry pointed out. "It could take a little longer than expected. The vitals are still strong."

"Did you get hold of his parents?" Cuddy asked Chase.

"Yes," Chase nodded. "His father is at some reunion or something but I talked with his mother. She wants to come over but agreed to wait until I can call and tell her more. If House wakes up his usual self then I think it would be best if he calls her and tells her if he wants her here."

"Good," Wilson sighed. "That's taken care of then. If only he would wake up now!"

--------------------------------

They had drifted down the river in silence since Death's question. House did think about it and, though the silence wasn't uncomfortable, he broke it saying: "I suppose I have to admit that the way I have behaved doesn't quite work. I find most people boring, and keeping them at a distance any means possible is a main goal with me. But there are a few of them that I don't mind having around at least some of the time, and some I even quite like having around. And those are the people that don't deserve to be treated the same as the rest. Only I'm not sure I remember how to behave differently."

"Before the infarction you were more sociable?" Death asked.

"I have never been real sociable," House denied. "But before when people approached me, I didn't always automatically push them away. Since the infarction – when you're a freak, the stupidity of other people tends to come out ten fold, and I'm not big on tolerance."

"Fair enough; and you have never needed hordes of people around you," Death nodded. "But you do need some. And you could start treating your few friends differently."

"You mean to apologize?" House didn't sound like he liked the idea.

"I have no desire to collect any of them before their time," Death informed him sternly. "So nothing over the top, please. But you do need to seriously think what you can change about your behaviour. My advice would be to deal with them honestly, at least when it's something important. They worry about you and you know they have reason to. Or if you don't, **I** definitely do."

"I have tried to be honest with them, sometimes," House muttered. "It hasn't worked very well."

"I know," Death sympathised. "You just need to try again. We already agreed on that they don't see you very clearly; you have done a little too good a job at hiding – in plain sight. Just give them another chance. Yes, they may disappoint you again, but letting people into your life is never risk-free."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," House sighed. "Unless, of course, I don't make it this time."

"I have a feeling that you will," Death smiled. "I'm starting to get a different feeling from you. There is life in you again."

"I may feel somewhat curious about how things might change," House mumbled. "It might be interesting to see Wilson's and Cuddy's reactions if I actually start acting differently."

"You just cannot resist pushing people's buttons, can you," Death shook her head at him smilingly.

The boat drifted gently ashore. Though the speed had been slow they had drifted far enough downriver for House not to see the part of the garden they had first taken the boat from. The boat was steady when they stepped ashore but as soon as House had followed Death to the shore, it drifted away again. They had reached a part of the garden that had a gazebo. Death led the way to it but before they left the river bank she picked one of the white Calla lilies growing near the water.

"How bridal," House remarked, with very slight sarcasm.

"In some cultures, yes," Death agreed. "But as I said, all flowers could be seen as symbols of Death, and Calla lilies just happen to be my favourites. Besides there are some people in the Northern Europe that think of white Calla lilies as the flowers of Death so in that sense this is quite appropriate."

"In that case, I stand corrected," House conceded. "Where are we going now? I thought my time here was drawing to an end."

"It is," Death agreed. "I'll have to send you back to your friends soon, but I did promise you a meeting with Pestilence, if you want? He is dead-heading the roses surrounding the gazebo."

"I think I would find that interesting, thanks," House said.

"Don't mind his manners, though," Death warned him. "He isn't that fond of doctors in general."

"I suppose we do interfere with his work," House accepted.

"It's not that exactly," Death denied. "But you'll find out."

Death took House to the gazebo and he saw one of the _monks_ there. When Death called for him he turned and House saw that it was indeed a skeleton inside the robes. However, when Pestilence saw House he lifted the hood from his head and there was sort of a shimmer and suddenly House was looking at an older man with grey hair and grey eyes. And like with Death the eyes carried centuries in them. He couldn't help but be a little startled, but he supposed that speaking was not that easy for a skeleton, so taking a more human form for that made sense.

"She doesn't usually bring visitors here," Pestilence said in a deep, calming voice. "Interesting. Why are you an exception?"

House glanced at Death but she was examining the roses so he answered the question the best he could: "I don't really know. She said that she needed to know more about me, since I didn't have either a life-wish or a death-wish. Apparently I'm a bit of a puzzle."

"That could do it," Pestilence nodded. "Our work is not the most stress-free job you can imagine so any light relief is welcome. Why did you want to see me?"

"She suggested it and I was very interested." House explained. "I'm a doctor and one of my specialities is infectious diseases."

"You're a do-gooder?" Pestilence didn't sound too happy.

"I try not to be," House decided that honesty was the best policy. "I work in a hospital as a diagnostician. My job is to find out why someone is sick when no other doctor has found the cause."

"Hm; so you don't really work in my field, so to speak," Pestilence relented.

"I have treated a patient with plague, another one with leprosy," House admitted. "And of course TB, but no, I don't really work _your_ field."

"TB," Pestilence frowned in concentration. "You saved Dr Sebastian, didn't you?"

"He was my patient, yes," House said. "It is usually what one tries to do with a patient: save them."

"Well, I suppose I cannot really hold it against you," Pestilence sighed.

"You don't like him?" House smiled widely.

"I don't like any of the do-gooders," Pestilence stated. "They come and start a campaign against one disease and they use all their time and energy on it. They bring medicine to remote parts of the world but they cannot stay and see how the medicine is distributed and used. People eat the medicine and once they feel better, they either stop taking it and store it for the next time they feel sick, or they share it with others who are sick – even if the illness is not the same. Either way none of them will be healed. And then a simple disease develops into a multi-resistant strain and you have a much bigger problem in your hands than you were supposed to have. And even those who do follow the instructions and are healed die of some other disease, equally rampant but less interesting."

"You think they do more harm then than good?" House asked. He did agree up to a point, but he had thought that some good came out of it all. Sure he did believe that the impulse for the do-goodying was mostly selfish – you got good press and, so House understood, helping people could get addictive. Some people had even a greater need to be needed than even Wilson had. But though he did feel very cynical about the people doing the work, he had still given some value to the work – at least on his least cynical moments.

"I know I'm a bit harsh," Pestilence sighed. "But I see all their failures, not their successes. But I admit those programmes do save some who would otherwise have died and some of those grow up to be people who really make a difference, people who will become teachers and politicians and priests and doctors and all kinds of professionals who then will dedicate their lives to make their own country a better place. It's not all wasted. But the part that is, can be truly disheartening to watch; and I watch."

"I'm sorry," House didn't know what else to say.

"Not your fault," Pestilence relented. "Not really anybody's fault anymore. Too much water down the river by now. So many mistakes over so many centuries. All that cannot be repaired. I suppose it's actually a good sign, for mankind, that at least some try. Who knows, eventually someone may get it right."

"You're not what I expected," House contemplated. "Not that I had time to expect anything really, but had I had time to picture you, I don't think this would have been it."

"I know," Pestilence accepted calmly. "The picture most cultures have of Death and her instruments is grim and violent. In most minds I'm a sort of demon gleefully punishing people for their numerous sins with the most horribly disfiguring diseases imaginable. And I'm also supposed to be inventing new ones just for my own amusement."

"Sounds about right," House nodded. "Only it doesn't somehow fit you."

"No, it doesn't," Pestilence said. "I don't actually invent any new diseases now; the old ones suffice quite nicely. Most of the new ones come about because of human activity. Take syphilis, it was never supposed to be a human disease; it wasn't supposed to be a disease at all. It causes no harm to the llamas. But if a man must poke where he has no business to poke, he cannot complain if he finds something he doesn't like. And once it spread to men, there was really no stopping it. But I did not feel the least _gleeful_ about it. Ok, maybe just a little when the Conquistadores got it, but just a little. But that is the only time. I don't punish people. I'm not a judge – just the executioner. And unlike Death, I have no discretionary powers. I cannot decide who lives or who dies. When I come around and your time is up, your time is up."

"Are you all like this?" House wondered. "All Death's minions?"

"Do you mean do we all see this as just a job that needs to be done?" Pestilence asked. "Yes, in that sense we are. This is not something you can get job-satisfaction from, but it is still necessary. Most of us deal with the violent side of death; we often take lives that should, in a fair world, have had more time. But world is not fair and death is necessary. We do what we do as objectively and dispassionately as we can. Each life must end one way or another sooner or later. We do the bulk work, so to speak, and Death does those jobs that need finesse."

"Interesting," House mused. "And you almost make me feel like a fraud. I cannot see any reason why Death would be interested in my fate when so many die every day."

"She has her reasons," Pestilence reassured House. "As I said, she has discretionary powers and she does know what she is doing. And she is Death; you cannot deceive her so fraud is not even a possibility."

"I suppose I have to take your word for it," House accepted.

"House," Death walked back to them. "It's getting late."

"Time for me to go?" House asked.

"Yes," Death nodded as she took House's hand. Her fingers were cool, almost cold and before House had time to react, to say goodbye to Pestilence, ask him any more questions, or even look around one more time he felt disoriented. His surroundings faded and the last thing he saw before darkness overtook him were Death's midnight blue eyes.


	8. Proof

_Thank you for your reviews again :D. See you next week-end, when I will - if things go as planned - complete this story._

_--------------------------------------------_

"He's waking up," Chase said watching the monitors. He took a flashlight and checked House's eyes.

"Gerrofff me!" House growled. He moved his head from side to side a few times and then opened his eyes. He seemed a little groggy, but that was just expected. He fastened his eyes on Chase who was standing next to him ready to ask the relevant questions: "Despite your great hair, you are not a sight for sore eyes!"

"At least his personality is intact," Henry remarked from the background.

"Keep your opinion to yourself, Scooter," House told him.

"Yeah, that's him alright," Wilson sighed in relief.

"Sounds good but I still need to check," Chase stated shooting the relevant questions at House.

"And the magic word?" House cocked up an eyebrow expectantly.

"Please?" Chase said after a moment of confusion. House nodded pleased, and rattled the answers to Chase. "Yeah, you're fine. The blood loss hasn't damaged your brain."

"Blood loss?" House repeated. He mentally checked his body and what he remembered of things prior to his waking in this hospital bed. "Internal bleeding?"

"Yes, your liver," Chase nodded.

"And what else was wrong?" House asked.

"Why would anything else be wrong," Cuddy tried to shrug.

"Because Wilson's hovering there like an angel of death," House observed dryly. "I know that face; he always wears it when he has to say the word _cancer_. Too bad he has to say it so often. So, Wilson, out with it."

"Chase found three small tumours in your liver when he was looking for the bleed," Wilson swallowed trying to make his voice stronger. "One of them was malignant. I'm sure we caught it in time; the tumour was only just turning cancerous. We need to do some tests, of course, and you need monitoring and possibly a round a chemo just to be sure but..."

"Stop babbling," House told Wilson. "I got the message already. I have cancer in my liver. Chase found it in time and after some treatment and with monitoring I'm fine."

"Yeah," Wilson tried to figure if House really was ok with the news or was he just faking his acceptance.

"You're forgetting I'm a doctor, too," House pointed out. "Cancer is not synonymous to death with me like with most patients. I'm fine. I know it isn't my time to go yet."

"And how exactly did you come by this knowledge," Cuddy snapped at him. She had been nearly out of her mind with worry and to have House react so calmly to everything made her angry. Sure he was fine now, but that didn't mean she could trust him not to risk his life again just on a whim and a _feeling_ that it wasn't his _time_ yet.

"I think he got it from a rather good authority," Henry mused giving House a considering look. He was fairly sure House was referring to his dream – which he had possibly had again during his unconsciousness.

"The very best," House replied smiling conspiratorially at Henry. However, he did notice the steam coming out of Cuddy's ears so he didn't leave it at that: "I'm not going to risk my life again like that. I had a hallucination again and things happened there that made me realise that I do want to live still. I promise; I'm not dying on you."

"You can't promise something like that," Cuddy told him but she did relax. "So was it a suicide attempt after all? That knife thing?"

"No," House denied firmly. "It wasn't. But you were right; I didn't really care one way or the other. It has been some time since I cared, but I do again. If you don't trust me you can send Dr Stone in to see me and she can convince you."

"You agree to see Dr Stone?" Cuddy was astounded. She had planned on sending the good doctor to see House now that he was captive audience, but she had still expected to have a battle in her hands.

"Yeah," House nodded. "I don't need her, but if me seeing her reassures you then fine, send her in."

"House, are you feeling ok?" Chase asked suspiciously. He checked the monitors – even tapping them to make sure they were functioning properly – but couldn't see anything wrong: temperature, pulse, blood pressure... everything was as it should be.

"You can leave now, Wombat," House told him with a glare. "If I have cancer I'm now Wilson's patient. Besides, don't you need to go and tell Cameron that I'm not going to die?"

"She has been busy in the ER," Chase said. "She doesn't know yet what has happened. But yeah, I better go and tell her. Otherwise she will chew my head off for keeping her in the dark." Chase made some final notes on House's chart and turned to go. As he got to the door, House stopped him.

"Chase," House's voice was serious and Chase turned to look. "Thanks." Chase blinked, but recovered remarkably quickly. He nodded his acknowledgement to the thanks and left.

Cuddy and Wilson weren't recovering quite as quickly. They stared at House like they weren't sure that he wasn't a pod-person after all. Henry, however, just smiled. Before anyone had time to say anything a nurse walked in. She was carrying a vase with one flower in it.

"I was told to bring this here," she said, though there was a slightly confused frown on her face.

"What is it?" House nearly barked. He didn't want interruptions just now; he was having fun, after all.

"It's a Calla lily," the nurse responded causing House to frown in confusion.

"Who sent it?" House asked.

"I don't know," the nurse replied. "It was brought to the nurse's station with the instruction to bring it here. She didn't say anything else and there is no card."

"She? What did she look like?" House wanted to know.

"I didn't really pay any attention to her," the nurse was a little surprised at her own inattention too. "She had a white coat with a hood over her head, but I only got a very general and fleeting impression of her. I really cannot say what she looked like. I don't even know if she was young or old."

"Ok," House conceded. "You can put it on the table there."

The nurse did as instructed and left. Everyone in the room stared at the beautiful, white flower.

"How very bridal," Wilson remarked hoping for a reaction from House.

"In some cultures, yes," House responded almost absently.

"What do you mean _in some cultures_," Cuddy demanded. "Calla lilies are possibly the most popular flower for bridal bouquets in this country! Though knowing how you avoid weddings at all cost, I'm not surprised if you don't know that."

"Yeah, I'm sure," House agreed quietly. "Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention."

"Do you know who it's from?" Cuddy asked curiously.

"No," House stated. "I don't. Cause the only one I can think of couldn't have had anything to do with it."

"What are you talking about?" Wilson started to get worried.

"Never mind," House dismissed the issue. "I'm still a bit confused. How long was I out of it anyway?"

"Quite a few hours," Henry informed him. "You collapsed soon after you got to work today and it's nearly four o'clock now. Had interesting dreams?"

"You could say so," House admitted. "Or hallucinations. They seemed pretty real."

"But you do know they were hallucinations, right?" Wilson checked.

"Couldn't have been anything else," House shrugged. "It's not like I went towards the light or anything. I wasn't dead at any point was I?"

"No, you weren't," Cuddy confirmed. "You got pretty close at first, before we got some blood into you and got you ready for the operation, but no, you weren't clinically dead this time at all."

"Good," House nodded. "I'm not sure my ribs could have taken another pounding. Cut-throat is surprisingly strong, fortunately."

"You look tired," Henry observed. "And I'm sure the anaesthetics haven't completely left your system yet. Perhaps we should leave you to rest now that we know you came through just fine."

"Yeah, I think I'd like that, thanks," House sighed. Then he suddenly remembered something. "You didn't call my parents, did you?"

"Chase did," Wilson passed the bucket without batting an eye. "Your father is at some reunion thing but he spoke with your Mother."

"Damn," House mourned. "Cuddy, would you call her and tell her I'm fine and that I will call her later?"

"Sure, no problem," Cuddy promised a little surprised at this almost mannered version of House.

Henry followed Cuddy and Wilson out of the room but before he left he turned to say: "Sweet dreams."

"I don't think I'll have any of those dreams anymore," House smiled back at him.

-----------------------------------

House woke up about an hour later. He had been right – or Death had been right, whichever. His dreams, if he had had any, were just normal. Death wasn't going to visit with him again. He looked at the flower and wondered. It couldn't be the one he had seen Death pick up in her garden. It had been a hallucination. No matter how real it had felt it had been all in his mind. The Calla lily was just a coincidence. Someone had remembered the room number wrong; or he had a secret admirer. Maybe even that girl with the spores, Ellie – Allie something, anyway the one with the red thong. Sure she was over her spore-induced crush, but she might have felt bad enough to send him a flower if she had heard about his illness. Though it hardly was public knowledge yet, since even Cameron hadn't heard. But surely there was a logical explanation. That the flower was this one was just a fluke. Surely.

Before House could fret himself into fever the door to his room opened and Dr Stone walked in.

"Dr Cuddy wanted us to have a talk," she said. "Is this a good time?"

---------------------------

Cuddy was working late, as usual, so when Dr Stone got out of House's room nearly two hours later she still found Cuddy in her office.

"Here's my evaluation of Dr House," Stone said as he set the papers on Cuddy's desk. "As far as his mental state is concerned he is as fit to practice medicine as he ever was. He can get back to work as soon as his physical condition allows."

"So you think he's sane?" Cuddy checked.

Dr Stone made a bit of a face: "You told me to find out if he is mentally fit to practice medicine. Sanity is not necessarily the same thing. He is still Dr House."

"Sorry, yes, you're right," Cuddy accepted. "Let me rephrase: is he sane enough? He is not suicidal or self-destructive? Despite the electrocution incident?"

"I cannot say what impulse made him try to nearly-kill himself, as he consistently phrased it, but whatever it was it must have passed. I could see no signs of depression or anything else to make me think he was especially self-destructive. So, yes, in my opinion he is sane enough," Dr Stone confirmed. "And that is my medical opinion."

"Thank you Dr Stone," Cuddy smiled.

"You're welcome, Dr Cuddy," Stone said as she turned to go. As she reached the door she did pause and turned to say just one more thing to Cuddy. "Dr Cuddy; if Dr House needs another psych evaluation any time soon..."

"I'll turn to you," Cuddy finished the sentence.

"Actually I was going to say that if he needs one again and I volunteer, please shoot me," Dr Stone sighed apologetically. "Because if I do, I must be incurably insane." At that she left Cuddy's office leaving Cuddy to stare at the door.

"What on earth did House say to her?!" Cuddy found herself exclaiming out loud.


	9. Changes

House was awake when Cuddy walked into his room. He was actually on the phone with his mother so Cuddy waited until he was finished with reassuring his Mother that he was just fine and the cancer had been found in time and Wilson was taking good care of him and no, there was no need for her to come and see him especially not with Aunt Sarah. But once he was done, Cuddy didn't waste any time.

"What did you say to Dr Stone?" Cuddy demanded.

"Why?" House wanted to know.

"She told me to shoot her if she ever volunteered to evaluate you again," Cuddy informed him.

"And I thought we had such a nice little chat!" House exclaimed surprised (not).

"About what!" Cuddy insisted.

"Life, Death, dreams, things like that," House shrugged. "Nothing that ought to make anyone suicidal."

"Then it must have been your stellar personality that did it," Cuddy snapped. "Spill!"

"There is nothing to spill," House maintained. "I answered all her questions, including the ones about my dreams. For some reason I hadn't got halfway through explaining about them and what I thought they meant when her eyes just started to glaze over. I really think that a shrink ought to be able to hide her boredom a little better than that from the patient."

"I was right," Cuddy sighed. "It was just your stellar personality. So what kind of dreams did you invent then?"

"Didn't invent any," House replied suddenly quite seriously. "I had a strange dream where I met Death and talked with her about the meaning of life, my life to be precise. A lot of things that I hadn't thought about - hadn't wanted to think about, started to come together."

"You had dreams about the Grim Reaper," Wilson's voice came from the doorway. He had just got there in time to hear House.

"No, not the Grim Reaper," House shook his head. "My Death was a woman. Or a girl. I'm not quite sure how to describe her. She wore white, she was beautiful – I'm sure, though I cannot for the life of me remember anything about her face except her midnight blue eyes. She was ageless and timeless and ... Never mind. But as dreams go, it was interesting."

"And suddenly the meaning of life was revealed to you," Cuddy gathered – not at all convinced that House wasn't pulling her leg, serious though he seemed to be.

"No," House denied. "The meaning of life eluded me once again. Even the meaning of my life; but even so, I did realise that I do want to live. But there are some changes I need to make."

"About time," Wilson huffed. "I have been telling you for years that you need to stop taking Vicodin to get high. You need to go back to the rehab..."

"Shut up Wilson," House told him almost gently causing him to stop in mid-sentence with his mouth open. "The first thing I need to do is to sack you as my physician."

"What!" Cuddy nearly screamed – Wilson was still trying to catch his breath.

"Obviously I need you to help me with the cancer," House explained. "You are top of your line after all; I would need to be an idiot to go to any other oncologist. But if I want to keep our friendship; if it's suppose to go on working even at the level it is working now, I need to find someone else to write me my Vicodin. You are not objective enough."

"You're lucky I'm not objective," Wilson shouted. "If I was, I would have forced you into rehab ages ago."

"I doubt that," House mused. "But that is neither here nor there. I do know that I have myself to blame for some of it; I haven't always been honest with you about my medical condition. On the other hand, most of the time you don't want to know because you need me to be an addict."

"That is rubbish!" Cuddy defended Wilson though House was pretty much ignoring her.

"Cuddy's right," Wilson insisted. "Nobody would be happier than me if you got your act together and stopped self-destructing."

"I know you don't want me to self-destruct," House conceded. "That is why you, every now and then, get it into your head to withhold my Vicodin or you try and talk – or even force – me into rehab. But you still need me to be an addict because then you can be my enabler. And if you are my enabler, then I cannot leave you. – Like everyone else has."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Wilson stared at House a little like rabbit caught in the headlights, though he did manage to make his voice almost convincingly firm. Obviously not quite convincingly enough, though, as Cuddy suddenly turned to look at him like she, too, had got some food for thought. "You need me to be your enabler, House. This has nothing to do with my needs."

"If you say so," House dismissed Wilson's claim. "However, that does not change the fact that I realised that I don't trust you enough, anymore, to have you as my doctor. I don't want to come to you for a prescription wondering if I will get it, or if this is one of the times you have decided to _help_ me. That is putting a strain on our friendship, too. And since I'm not planning on going anywhere any time soon, I don't want that. We have enough problems without that added to it."

"You don't trust me!" Wilson stared at House – hurt, confusion, denial and very deep down an acknowledgement were shining in his eyes. House felt sorry for his friend; he felt sorry for himself, too, but he held Wilson's gaze: this was necessary, and if their friendship couldn't handle this, then it was even more fragile than he had thought. "After everything you've done to me; everything you put me through, **you** are telling **me** that you don't trust me."

"James," Cuddy touched his arm consolingly. "House is still not well. I don't know what went on in his dreams, but until he is himself again, until we sort this out in a calm and adult manner, I can be his doctor. You two just take a time-out. Until he is better."

"Sorry Cuddy," House told her. "I don't trust you any further than I trust him. Neither one of you are objective when it comes to me."

"What?" Cuddy couldn't believe her ears.

"So how do you like them apples," Wilson asked her.

"But who then?" Cuddy wanted to know.

"Don't know yet," House shrugged. "I'll find one once this cancer thing is dealt with. That, as I said, I do trust Wilson to handle, so I have time to find someone else for the other stuff I need."

"Why wouldn't you trust me," Cuddy demanded. "I'm the one who wrote you Vicodin when Wilson couldn't!"

"Until Jimmy-boy convinced you that you needed to force me to take Tritter's deal," House reminded her. "I know you were distracted at the time, but had Tritter gone after any other doctor in the hospital you would have had the hospital lawyers up his ass so fast and so hard he would have had begged to have another thermometer there instead. But since it was me, you gave him a free hand because you thought you could teach me a lesson that way. Humility or something, I don't know, I don't care. I'm not interested in your lessons. And you let it go too far. Sure, Wilson was the one who finally screwed things up, but you dropped the ball, too. I cannot trust either one of you because when it comes to me, neither one of you is objective. And you, Cuddy, are way too easily manipulated."

"Tritter didn't manipulate me," Cuddy insisted.

"No, but Wilson did," House pointed out. "He does it on regular basis. He comes to you with deep concern in his puppy-eyes telling you how worried he is about me and how I need to change, to give up the Vicodin or learn humility so that I _don't melt my wings_ or something. You object, but you listen and finally, even sometimes against your better judgement, you let his concern sway you and you do what he wants. That is until I decide to counter his moves. I know you too well, Cuddy. When I put my mind to it I can make you do anything I want; even perjure yourself."

"You did not _make_ me perjure myself," Cuddy gasped. "I did it for the sake of the hospital. And because I did think that you didn't deserve to go to jail. But it was my decision."

"Sure it was," House scoffed. "Come on Cuddy! Did you really think my rehab-stunt was for Tritter! He wasn't going to get daily reports from the rehab staff on how I was doing and what conversations I had had with what visitors I had. Yeah, I needed to do it for the judge, too, but though she was a smart woman and could well see what Tritter really was all about, she could not make the evidence go away. You were the only one who could do that. So there I was, being pathetic and brave, even working on a patient and you were impressed with my efforts. Unsuccessful visit from Tritter – which I hadn't actually anticipated, but thank you for your persistence, his visit was most timely – and an apology to Wilson and you were toast. Getting hugged by Cameron was, of course, a nice bonus, but not the real aim."

"You, you..." Wilson was sputtering, trying to find ways to express himself and his indignation! That apology had been the one thing he had believed to have been real about House's rehab.

"I cannot believe you," Cuddy was in shock. "You made me commit a crime! Have you any idea how deeply I agonized over that! How hard it was for me! How could you!"

"I didn't want to go to prison," House pointed out. "Besides, you did let things get that far. You and Wilson. I know I wasn't an innocent victim there, not completely, though Tritter's witch hunt went way too far considering the offence. But you share in the blame too. However, that is water under the bridge, no point in dwelling on it, except that you do see why I cannot trust you, Cuddy? Not as a doctor. I do trust you with my life, I did just that then. But not for the Vicodin."

"But I trusted you," Cuddy choked.

"More fool you," House didn't think now was the time to be merciful, not if this was going to be sorted out. "You should know by now who I am and what you can trust me with."

"I... I'll leave you to rest," Cuddy managed to say with some dignity before she retreated from the battlefield.

"I don't think I can bear to look at you right now," Wilson stated disgustedly and he too left the room.

"Yeah, yeah," House muttered. "I have heard that before." He leaned back against the pillows and hoped fervently that he had been right in thinking that a frank conversation with his friends would, eventually, lead into a healthier friendship between them all. If he was wrong, he had just lost his two best friends – and hurt them for now good reason.

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Wilson stormed into his office. How DARE House! After everything he had tried to do for his friend. And to say that to Cuddy, too. If he had seen Cuddy's face when Chase called for Wilson in the operating room, he wouldn't have dared to imply that he could not trust Cuddy. House was important to Cuddy – just as he was important to Wilson. House was the brother he had lost, and he was not going to loose him, too! Wilson threw himself on the couch and fumed until he fell asleep after the long day of anxiety he had had. Anxiety for House, the ingrate.

Wilson woke up with a start. He was sure he had heard a noise! He sat up abruptly and looked around.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you!" A young man, maybe a teenager though Wilson couldn't really say how old he was, was sitting on Wilson's desk. He had a thick, curly brown hair, narrow face and nearly black eyes. He was wearing a sort of monkish robe, with a hood but under the hem of his robe a pair of jeans were showing.

"Who are you?" Wilson was bewildered. "And how did you get in here. I'm sure I locked the door."

"Oh, locks don't hold me," the boy shrugged. "I'm one of Her minions, you see."

"Her minions?" Wilson didn't feel any wiser.

"Didn't Dr House tell you?" the boy looked surprised. "I thought he told you everything."

"I don't think he has mentioned you, or Her, whoever she is," Wilson replied cautiously. He obviously had a madman in his hands.

"Death. Didn't he tell you about his meeting with Death?" The boy asked.

"He did mention that he had had a dream about her, but what has that got to do with you?" Wilson was beginning to think the maybe the madman in this scenario was actually him.

"Ok, so he just didn't go into details," the boy accepted. "Well, he did meet with Death and I'm one of her minions. I'm Depression. But not to worry, I'm not here to get you. She just wanted to know how you took House's decision to replace you. She doesn't want you to break up the friendship, you see."

"Death wants me to remain friends with House," Wilson was sure he had lost his mind.

"Yeah," Depression nodded. "She kinda likes House, you see. She even cried for him and I haven't seen her ever do that. Of course I have only been around for a couple of hundred years, so there is plenty I haven't seen. Pestilence said that he has seen her do that before once or twice and he has been with her like forever. But even he hasn't seen her send flowers to anyone. Ok, it was just one, but Calla lilies are her favourites and she doesn't even let anyone else look after them, so that is huge."

"And why haven't you been around longer," Wilson decided to fasten on the one thing that made some sense to him in Depression's ramblings.

"Well, before people didn't really have time to be depressed," Depression shrugged. "I mean they were too busy just trying to survive. Sure, some did feel depressed even then, but not many and Death could handle them just fine. It wasn't till people started to have time on their hands, you know actual free time, that they had time to get depressed too. Of course the postpartum depression was the one that was most common at first, but people got more creative with time. It still amazes me how many just choose to kill themselves with work! Just look at you; you only have this job and House. I'm actually amazed, looking around, that this is the first time I'm here. I have been in offices like this so many times that I've lost count. This is a really depressing place and that's my professional opinion, so to speak."

"Could we leave my office out of this," Wilson suggested. "Now why was it you came here?"

"Just to tell you that you better take a good look at yourself and what you have done to House," Depression said. "Or perhaps I should say to your friendship with him. Death is rather angry at you for the way you have behaved. Like what was that about last Christmas! A guy tries to off himself and you just storm off in anger?"

"He wasn't trying to _off himself_," Wilson huffed. "He was just dead drunk!"

"You're telling me that Death doesn't know when somebody is trying to kill himself," Depression scorned. "Yeah, right, she sure would be the last to know. You really are as blind as she thinks you are. The only thing you did right last Christmas was to **not** give House the medicine to stop him from puking his guts out, because had you given them to him, he would not have vomited the overdose out in time but you really would have found him dead in his rooms and not just dead to the world."

"He tried to kill himself!" Wilson was stunned.

"Duh!" Depression rolled his eyes. "Did you really think he was so stupid that he didn't know signing the register for those meds wasn't going to land him in prison for sure? The only reason it didn't matter to him was because he wasn't going to be around for that. He only wanted to diagnose the girl, say goodbye to his Mother and then just stop the pain. I would have thought anyone could have seen that."

"I... I..." Wilson didn't know what to say. Depression seemed so sure and now that he heard it said out aloud, Wilson couldn't believe that he hadn't come to that conclusion right then. It seemed so obvious. "House was right. I am too close to him. I don't know how to be objective anymore."

"Do you know how to be his friend still?" Depression asked.

"I don't know," Wilson said distressed. "But I'm sure going to try."

"Ok, that's good enough," Depression hopped from the table. "I'll go and tell Death. She'll be happy. And you really want her to be happy with you, since she has ways of getting you if she isn't. She is Death, after all."

"Ouch!" Wilson woke up as his body hit the floor. He had rolled himself off the couch. He felt confused for a moment and he looked around expecting to find Depression somewhere in the room but he was alone. "A dream. Get a grip man, it was just a dream. You just took the things House told you and twisted them and your fear for him made you dream stupid dreams. That's all. Nothing to worry about. Right?"

Though Wilson was sure he had nothing to worry about, he still decided it was time to go home – and time to just quickly peek into House's room before he went; just to make sure everything was ok. Having done that he donned his coat and left the hospital for the day.


	10. War and friendship

_Thank you for your reviews, I appreciate them. And Nikelodean; I'm sorry my take is so different from yours that you find it hard to accept :( but if it helps__, you can decide that this was from House's point of view – and even he does admit that he wasn't only a victim but at fault, too (and obviously nobody is completely objective about himself, though I have always liked House for being unusually self-aware). As for why Depression hasn't been around Wilson before; it's because Wilson is on anti-depressants. He doesn't cause depression he only comes around when the depression turns deadly – and sometimes he travels with Murder and Mayhem. When I thought of Death's minions I saw them as mostly collectors of the lives that each cause has brought about; though the older ones did probably have something to do with the design of things though people created the conditions for war, plague, pestilence etc._

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Next morning Wilson went to see Cuddy the first thing after he got to work. He thought that she might be with House, but didn't think it very likely given the conversation they had had the night before. And he was right: Cuddy was in her office trying to keep busy. Trying being the operative word; it was obvious that she had something on her mind as Wilson could see her through the glass sitting at her desk with a pen in the air and a vacant look in her eyes. She quickly replaced that look with her efficient mask when Wilson knocked on her door.

"Are you ok?" Wilson asked her without any preamble.

"Are you?" Cuddy countered taking in Wilson's tired and worried look.

"Probably about the same as you," Wilson acknowledged. "I have done some thinking; a lot of it, actually. And apparently my subconscious has been working too, judging by the weird dream I had."

"You too?" Cuddy frowned.

"Are you telling me you had a strange dream, too?" Wilson asked.

"You first," Cuddy replied cautiously. She wasn't going to tell hers unless Wilson's was at least half as strange.

"Did you know that House tried to kill himself last Christmas," Wilson surprised Cuddy with his seemingly apropos announcement.

"No," Cuddy was shocked.

"I didn't either," Wilson confessed. "I actually saw him; I went to his flat because I worried about him being alone right then and I saw him on the floor and my first thought was that he had overdosed. I ran to him, scared, but then I saw vomit on the floor. I decided that he was just dead drunk and I left – disgusted. Last evening, in a dream I vas visited by one of Death's minions, as he called himself, who told me that it had been a suicide attempt. The only reason why House didn't succeed was because I hadn't given him the meds he had wanted to stop him from puking his guts out."

"My ..." Cuddy didn't know what to say. She had known that House was desperate – he had not lied about that on the stand. She only wished she had been wise enough to really do what she had told the judge she had done; now she wished it twice as hard. "Death's minion? War?"

"War? No, it was Depression. Why would you think it was War?" Wilson frowned.

"Because in my dream it was War," Cuddy informed him.

_Cuddy had been in her bed, fast asleep, when suddenly she__ had felt a presence in her room. Cautiously she opened her eyes – at first thinking it must be House again (though he had never actually broken into her home when she was there; just that one time with Chase and Foreman) but soon she realised that House was still in the hospital. She looked about herself trying to move her head as little as possible and trying to keep her breathing deep and sleep-like._

"_Very wise," she heard a deep, masculine voice near her bed. "But you are in no danger from me so you can open your eyes. If you can call it that since you're dreaming about waking up."_

"_Dreaming!" that got Cuddy to open her eyes wide. The first thing she saw was a tall, well-built man in a monks robe standing next to her bed. He wasn't young, his hair was iron grey with some silver sprinkled on it, but she couldn't for the life of her estimate his age. His eyes were the most prominent feature in his face: they were deep, almost flaming, topaz. The next thing she saw was that she was no longer in her room; still in her bed, but the bed was now inside a gazebo surrounded by roses._

"_I'm sorry for the initial scare," the man told Cuddy. "But there was really no help for it. I thought it was best to bring you here so that you would know for sure you're dreaming. Death said it was ok."_

"_Death?" Cuddy was totally confused. "And who are you?"_

"_I'm War, one of her minions," War explained. "I'm not here to get you but Death wanted me to check up on you, just in case you were drowning yourself in guilt."_

"_And why would I be doing that," Cuddy asked – knowing full well that that was what she had been doing prior to going to bed._

"_Because of what House said to you," War reminded her gently. "He did have a point, but Death didn't want you to take all the guilt. Yes, you could have handled things better and yes some of your actions did push House in the wrong direction, but whatever mistakes you made you definitely made up for all of them with your conduct on the stand. You really have no reason to feel guilty. Maybe you need to learn something from what happened, since trying to teach lessons to House, at least the way you and Wilson have been going on about it, really doesn't work. But you wallowing in guilt it totally unnecessary."_

"_It seems rather odd that I'm supposed to believe that Death takes such interest in me, and House," Cuddy doubted._

"_I have to admit I was rather surprised myself," War agreed. "She usually knows better than to grow fond of anyone. I've known her to do this only a couple of times before and I would never have expected her to get this interested in the son of John House."_

"_You know House's father?" Cuddy wondered._

"_I am War and he is a soldier – or was," War pointed out._

"_So why would his son not be someone Death wouldn't like," Cuddy didn't quite know how to phrase the question, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from asking._

"_No reason really," War shrugged. "He does have a mother, after all, and obviously he takes after her. John House... he isn't one that Death would need to use her discretionary powers with. When his time is up, it will be up."_

"_You sound almost like you don't like him?" Cuddy tried to interpret War's tone of voice. "Isn't he a good solder?" _

"_Why do you think I would like _good soldiers_?" War asked. "Because I'm War? I just collect the victims of war, I don't cause wars. And like most who know what war really is, I don't like it."_

"_You're a pacifist?" Cuddy stared at him._

"_Like Famine, Plague and Pestilence I would very much like to retire, but it doesn't look like humanity is going to let us do that any time soon," War stated calmly. _

"_So was John House a good solder or not?" Cuddy wanted to know._

"_He was a very good solder," War revealed. "And there were times when I really wished that I had discretionary powers over whom I take and who I leave. But I suppose it is a good thing that I don't. Besides, I understand that he is an OK husband – as far as husbands go."_

"_You don't like him!" Cuddy realised._

"_That really is neither here nor there," War shrugged. "I rarely like those I meet in my line of work. Mind you, I rarely dislike them either, since I really don't have that much time to pay attention to them. I'm rather busy you see. But John House is irrelevant to my visit here. I was just sent to see how you're doing and to tell you not to take too much of the blame."_

"_House says that I excel in guilt, so I don't really know if I know how not to take the blame," Cuddy mourned._

"_Try," War advised her with an understanding smile. "And stop trying to teach him lessons. If his Father didn't succeed, you won't either. And unlike his Father, you and Wilson really have the power to break him if you go too far."_

"_Why would we have that power?" Cuddy was curious and rather surprised._

"_He doesn't hate you," War said as he stepped closer and passed his hand over Cuddy's eyes. They closed and the next time she opened them it was morning and she was back in her own room and now she was truly awake instead of dreaming of being awake._

"He doesn't hate us?" Wilson repeated after hearing a summary of Cuddy's dream.

"Which seems to indicate that when he told me that he hates his Father, he really meant it," Cuddy commented. "Do you know why he hates his Father? You have met him, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have met him, and House's Mother," Wilson nodded. "They seemed like perfectly pleasant people. I have no idea why House hates him. I always thought he just hated seeing them because he felt they couldn't really cope with him being a cripple, but I have never dared to ask him out loud what his issues with his father are."

"You don't think there is abuse or anything there?" Cuddy wondered. "He was in the military, after all, and they can have rather strict ideas about discipline."

"He has never said anything," Wilson didn't know what to think. "There has never been any real indication of anything of the sort. Besides, Blythe House doesn't seem like the kind of woman who would stay with an abusive husband – even if he was only abusive to her child."

"True," Cuddy agreed. "Not that I have met her but what I have heard, it doesn't fit. Of course, when House was a child many things that are now recognised as child abuse were just acceptable discipline then. Not necessarily something everyone practised, but not punishable by law or even always disapproved of by others."

"That is true," Wilson agreed. "So which one of us feels brave enough to ask?"

"Not me," Cuddy declared. "And I'm fairly sure you don't either. Besides, I'm not so sure it matters. What happened between him and his father really shouldn't be an issue for us. What we need to acknowledge is that the way we have tried to manage House hasn't worked. War – and Henry were both right. It is not working for us. It's not working for House either. We need to either give up or find a different way. And personally I think we need to give up."

"Are you telling me that you are going to let him do whatever he wants from now on?" Wilson scowled.

"No, of course not," Cuddy stated. "I still have to look after the best interest of this hospital. But I think I'm through trying to change him. I'll just take one issue at a time and if he can't give me a good reason for doing something, I'm going to stop him. But I will do it one thing at a time. If I want to be his friend – and I do – I will have to accept him as he is. I may have to learn to draw some boundaries around my personal life to make it all work, but I'll see how things go. One step at a time."

"Are you sure?" Wilson was doubtful.

"Yes," Cuddy stated. "And the first step is that I will go to him and I will apologize for my part in the Tritter debacle. I will also tell him that I do not accept that he was innocent, since he most definitely wasn't, but I did make mistakes I shouldn't have. Tritter was abusing his power as a police officer and I let him. I should not have. That was my fault and I need to acknowledge it. But once that is done I will insist that it is left in the past and we will go on from here. This hospital needs him. And – even if it galls me to admit it – I need him, too. He is my friend. Annoying, impossible, exasperating, rude, ungrateful, arrogant, unhinged, terrible and dear friend and I really don't know what I would do if I lost him."

Wilson and Cuddy looked each other in the eye for a long time and finally Wilson sighed: "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I don't like it, since I don't think I have ever had a more screwed up friendship than I have with him, but somehow he grows on you. The most outrageous things, things you would never accept from anyone else, are just ok when he does them. You forgive him the unforgivable, you accept the unacceptable, you condone the unpardonable and you don't know even why. Except that it's House. Somehow with everything he does he manages to quite not to cross the line. You think he does, a dozen times a day you think he has crossed the line. And were it anyone else he would have. But House, somehow he just toes the line just right and you forgive him. Why, you don't even know, but somehow he has managed to accrue your forgiveness. Style, gall, charm, charisma – I don't know. But somehow he just never goes quite too far with you."

"Yeah," Cuddy nodded. "Infuriating of him, but there it is."

They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating House and their weird friendship with him.

"Shall we go and see him?" Wilson suggested after a while.

"Do we really have a choice?" Cuddy asked ruefully.

"I suppose not," Wilson agreed. "He may be addicted to Vicodin, but I rather suspect we are addicted to him."

"At least it's unlikely that he will ruin our livers," Cuddy pointed out.

"Speak for your self," Wilson sighed. "He doesn't challenge you to drinking contests."

"You could refuse," Cuddy suggested.

"It's House," Wilson reminded her.

"Yes, I almost forgot, sorry," Cuddy agreed.


	11. Life goes on

_And this is the final chapter. __Yes, I know I could go on exploring how the friendships develop from here on, but I think I'm sufficiently AU and OOC here already, so I'll leave it here, since I don't want it to turn into Grey's Anatomy or some soap or something. Thank you for reading this, thank you for your comments and I'm sure something else will happen during season 4 to set me off again, so see you next time :D._

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House stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks. Not that he really needed to, but Wilson wasn't taking any chances. The morning after both Wilson and Cuddy had had their dreams had been a little awkward but once both Wilson and Cuddy had made their apologies over their parts in the Tritter debacle – and surprisingly House had apologized too for having been an un-co-operative ass (Cuddy had nearly fainted with shock) – they had got back to normal and they were friends again. That meant that House took advantage of Wilson every chance he got and made inappropriate remarks about Cuddy's ass and cleavage even when he really didn't have a chance. But since that was the way their friendships worked, everybody was – well not happy, but content. Situation was back to normal. Not that House had accepted Wilson's offer to be his physician again. He still maintained that it was better for their friendship if he found someone else. And that was what he was doing when he limped into the clinic on his first day after his sick leave.

Chase was surprised when he was called to the clinic, but he just assumed that one of the patients he had treated when he was House's fellow remembered him and had liked him enough to want to consult him again. After all, he hadn't been away from Princeton-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital long enough for all of the patients he had seen to know that he had been gone at all.

"Room 2," the nurse told him as she gave him the chart.

"Thanks," Chase nodded as he took it and walked into the examination room. He stopped short as soon as he closed the door behind him, looked up and saw House waiting for him. "House!"

"Surprise?" House suggested.

"I thought I was supposed to meet a patient here," Chase said a little hesitantly.

"Yeah," House nodded. "Me."

"Ok," Chase was feeling his way. He wasn't at all sure what was going on.

"I told Wilson that he cannot be in charge of my pain management anymore," House explained. "I need a new doctor."

"And I'm it?" Chase wasn't going to make any assumptions.

"Well, I thought I'd give you a try," House shrugged. "Seeing as you seem to have grown a backbone lately."

"Ok," Chase was still unsure of what House wanted but he was willing to play along. "So how much Vicodin do you need?" He asked as he took out his pad.

"No," House shook his head. "That's not how this works."

"You don't want me to write you a prescription?" Chase was astonished.

"Sure I do," House stated. "But if you're going to be my physician and not just someone I touch for a prescription from time to time you need to know what you're dealing with. Start with reading the chart."

"You're telling me that this is for real," Chase concluded. "That you really want me to be your physician?"

"Yeah," House confirmed.

"I see," Chase lied. He didn't in fact see at all, but he decided to go for it as if this was for real. "I better read your chart then."

Chase took the file and started to read it. Some of it was familiar as he had sat in on the lecture House had given two-three years ago, but not all of it. He looked at the MRIs, read the information and was feeling sicker by the minute. This was way too much information for him. He didn't really want to know what the man he admired – and almost looked upon as a second father – was going through every day.

"There are some notes in here that are in your handwriting," Chase observed.

"Yeah," House nodded. "I'm afraid I wasn't completely honest with Wilson about everything and it caused some problems so I thought it best to not repeat my mistake. I added a few things he hadn't known to note down."

"I see," Chase muttered. Mostly to just say something, not because he really _saw_ anything. But what he did read, and especially the notes House had added to his chart convinced him that House was serious about this. So he needed to be serious, too.

Chase and House were in the examination room for nearly an hour. House surprised Chase greatly with his co-operation, and in the end he actually examined the injury and for the first time he saw the damage that had been done to House's leg. It was not a pretty sight. He examined the MRIs, he read the chart, he asked questions – and received answers, just like House was any other new patient of his.

"I could prescribe stronger Vicodin if you want," Chase suggested tentatively. "But you would need to take a couple of days off to see how it works for you."

"No point," House refused. "I know how this strength works with me, and if I get a case this will be enough to keep the pain tolerable."

"Most people would not settle for just _tolerable_," Chase pointed out.

"When you suffer from chronic pain _tolerable_ is usually what you have to settle for," House testified. "Unless you want to be stoned out of your mind, that is. It's a very fine balancing act if you want to function."

"I'm beginning to see that," Chase mused. "Ok, I'll prescribe you your usual poison and we'll go on from there."

Once Chase had written both the prescription and the markings on the chart they left the examination room together. No sooner had they closed the door behind them that they ran into Cameron.

"What?" Cameron looked at them questioningly. "Why were you in the examination room together? House doesn't have any patients and I'm sure Cuddy didn't order you to watch him in the clinic."

Chase looked quickly at House and then he looked around and then he looked at Cameron with a slightly hunted look on his face: "Look, Cameron, I'm really sorry," he nearly stammered. "I didn't, I really didn't mean for you to find this out this way. Look, I love you, you know that. You are the love of my life in fact. This does not change that. At all. Believe me." (House was beginning to feel entertained so he leaned against the door and looked down on the floor to hide his gleeful expression). "I still love you more than anything, but I'm sorry, I also love cricket."

"Cricket!" Cameron stared at Chase like he had lost his mind.

"Yeah," Chase admitted shamefaced. "House found this channel that shows cricket and he said that I could watch it with him on his pocket TV if I pretended to consult with him over a patient and he could thus avoid clinic duty. I mean, I know it was a rerun but there was this guy – you wouldn't know his name – but he batted six overs six times in the game! It was like amazing! Have you any idea how rare that is."

"Cricket," Cameron repeated in a daze. "You were in the examination room with House watching cricket. At a time when you were supposed to be working. And when House was supposed to be working! You... MEN!" Cameron threw he hands up in the air and stalked off.

"Boy," House told Chase solemnly. "I'm proud of you."

"I couldn't resist," Chase sighed repentantly. "She is so cute when she is all worked up."

"She will find out eventually why we were in there," House pointed out.

"I know," Chase nodded. "But she is still cute when she is all worked up."

"I have to agree with you on that," House acknowledged. "Lunch? Wilson and Henry are coming too."

"Ok," Chase accepted. "I still have about an hour before I have to be in the surgery."

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House and Chase walked into House's office where Wilson and Henry were waiting for them – or for House, but it amounted to the same thing. And then they all made their way to the cafeteria. As usual when it came time to pay House couldn't find his wallet.

"I must have left it in my desk, sorry," House exclaimed not in the least apologetically.

"It's ok," Henry said from behind Chase who was next in line after House (Wilson being the first). "I've got it. All four."

"Decent of you," Chase approved, as did Wilson who was happy to put his wallet away for once.

They got their lunches and Henry took care of the bill. They made their way to a table for four at the side of the cafeteria. As they sat down Henry took the wallet from his tray and gave it to House.

"I believe this is yours," Henry informed House with a wide and wily smile.

House looked at the offered wallet with suspicion at first but recognising it as indeed his he took it and looked at Henry was the reality of the situation dawned on him. Henry had indeed paid for the lunches but with House's money.

"The next lunch will really be on me," Henry confirmed.

"You fox," House acknowledged with a wide smile as he accepted his wallet and put it in his pocket. Chase laughed.

"What? What just happened," Wilson hadn't paid enough attention so he was in the dark about the little drama that had just played.

"Henry paid for our lunches with House's money," Chase informed him calmly, though with a wide smile.

"You did?" Wilson stared at Henry with respect.

"I'm an old dog," Henry stated. "It's no use trying old tricks on me; I know them all."

"He took my wallet from my desk even before I got back to my office," House clarified.

"But don't you lock your desk?" Wilson wondered.

"Yeah, I do," House nodded. "So what?"

"Desks are not that difficult to open you know," Henry pointed out. "All you need is a little practise."

"My god, you really are an older version of House," Wilson reaffirmed his previous opinion of Henry.

"Except that he really is more polite," Chase observed.

"Yeah, there is that," Wilson nodded. "That was ... I cannot believe I never thought of doing that. I have been paying his lunches forever, and I know he will make me pay for his lunches every time he can. Why haven't I thought of doing that? Even if not to pay for my own lunch then at least to make him pay for his." Wilson was shaking his head at his own gullibility.

"It could have something to do with it being useless to expect old heads to reside on young shoulders," House observed dryly. "And don't go getting any ideas now. I'm on to this trick already."

"I'm sure I can think of something else for the next time it's needed," Henry mused confidentially and Chase was fairly sure he would too. Wilson was still berating himself for not having thought of this trick himself at some earlier date so he missed that exchange.

For a man who had been pretty much hoisted by his own petard House was very cheerful during the lunch and the four men enjoyed their break. They might have enjoyed it even more had they known that the nurses had already named them as the Apocalypse Brotherhood or the Four Horsemen. Nothing good could come from those four men being in cahoots. Oddly enough Dr Cuddy, who happened to catch a sight of them when she came into the cafeteria to get a frozen yogurt with sprinklers on it, was quite happy to see them enjoying themselves. She actually smiled. Well, there was no accounting for tastes and apparently Dr Cuddy liked trouble. At least the kind of trouble that those four could come up with.

Yeah, it seemed that things were going to remain pretty much the same in Princeton-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital, even when things changed.

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The End


End file.
